Xmas is almost over. Use this tutorial to make an LED lamp from Christmas lights, which is a good way to get use out of them the other 11 months of the year. I'd hang it upside down as a DIY geek chandelier. Be Warned: The tutorial has some mind-numbing steps, like stripping out the LEDs from the Xmas light strand, and some complex wiring and soldering. Much like a professionally made chandelier, making something this ornate is going to be labor intensive. And maybe electrocute you. [Instructables]

Weapon tech fans or Ghost Recon fanatics will remember the corner shot rifle. This mod has the same camera, LCD and hinge that lets a soldier shoot around building edges without getting in the line of fire. But this one is wrapped up in a cat suit, just like the one that used to drive the car in Saturday Night Live. It makes a somewhat cowardly weapon even more pussy. So if you see an unusually tall cat peeking around corners in your local war zone with what looks like a muzzle coming out of his mouth, I'd say catnip is not going to get you very far. [Geekologie]

The folks in Europe and Asia have already gotten their presents, and the rest of us in the States will be joining them very soon. So, what did you guys score? New gadgets? Clothes? Movies? DVDs? Games? A coupon for one free sexy time with Jesus Diaz? Let everyone know and we'll see who made off like a ninja and who's crying under their tree.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, along with their Apple commercial alter egos, have enjoyed their share of repressed sexual tension hostility/rage. Today, through the help of everyone's favourite online elf dancing tool, they put all the cheap geek jabs aside in honor of the season.

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Everybody loves a slender waist, and what better way to get one than with the world's most whored out cat? Just slip on the Slender Shaper, flip the switch to "Svelte," and you'll go from a size 6 to a size 2 in no time. Or not, since these things don't actually work. [Tokyo Times]

The last time we saw HDMI cables for the Xbox 360 it was from the now out-of-business Lik-Sang. This HDMI Conversion Kit however, is from MadCatz, who have brought interesting and innovative products to market without going arse up.

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Our hats go off to Sam aka SunFish7, inventor of the JediPad, the most original rethinking of a handheld computer interface since the Wiimote. It's got seven pressure sensitive ThinkPad-style trackpoints plus internal gyros, so you can move the cursor by waving but change the speed and accuracy of the movement as needed, by pressing down on a trackpoint. There's a more intuitive circular pop-up menu system to go along with it for faster navigation. Sam's even built a crazy orange gyro hat for additional motion tracking (or else some high-tech form of "big pimpin'"). You can see a video, more pics and some of the JediPad's backstory from our e-mail interview with Sam after the jump.

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One of the developers at NI (we think this is National Instruments) took a guitar hero guitar, a copy of Frets on Fire (the open source PC version of Guitar Hero) and the office Christmas lights and rigged the three up to a cacophonous symphony of light and sound.

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This wee helicopter is the Ka-56 "Wasp," a flying vehicle for one that can be folded down and carried by just one person. Designed and created in Soviet Russia in 1971, it doesn't seem to have really gotten beyond the prototype stage. I'm assuming that's because it's horribly dangerous, but it could be for any number of reasons. Guesses, dear commenters? Oh, and the first person to make a "In Soviet Russia, helicopter flies you!" joke gets banned as a Christmas present to me.

It being Christmas Eve, it's pretty cold and even snowy in many parts of the US. That's why I'd like to present to you a video that'll make you pine for the warm sun of summer. A bunch of people created giant slip-and-slides that ended with big jumps pointed towards a lake. What resulted looks like so much fun I can't adequately put it into words. Sure, a few people in this video undoubtedly ended up with seriously red bellies after their jumps, but it looks so worth it. As to the folks who organised it, according to the video it was some equity group. The website doesn't even mention any crazy events like this. I'm confused. [YouTube]

It's been a year since the PS3 was released, but TechBugTV and gametrailers.com have just figured out that you can tweak two settings to make the visual look not "washed out"&m—the main complaint people have when comparing PlayStation 3 graphics to Xbox 360 graphics on the same game. All you have to do is go to your RGB settings and change "Limited" to "Full", then flip the "super-white" setting to "On" on TVs that support it. Even though YouTube's vid quality looks somewhere between horrible and insanely horrible, you can still tell the difference in colours. [TechBugTV]

• The Queen of England created her own YouTube channel. I can't wait to see her reaction video to 2 Girls 1 Cup. [BBC]
• The United States will outlaw the sale of incandescent light bulbs in 2012. [NYT]
• Australia's national ID program got the ax before it could be implemented, thanks to the incoming Rudd Labor Government. [Ars Technica]
• Villagers in Dalit, India are starting to get cell phones. The only problem? Since no electricity runs to Dalit, the villagers need to walk 12 miles every day to charge the phones. [IBN]
• Have a Merry Christmas if you're celebrating, or a great movie/Chinese food day if you're not. Thanks to fellow IU alums We Are The Postmen for the video inspiration. [We Are The Postmen]

In an attempt to score herself a sweet new rack, this married mother of four managed to gather up two Wiis and 7 Guitar Hero IIIs for auction on eBay.

So I set out 3 weeks ago to find 20 Wii's and sell them for $500-ish a piece like everyone else is doing to buy myself a Christmas gift, a new set of boobs. You see mine are used, as in milk factory used. We-I am married-have 4 children and I have spent 8 years pregnant and nursing. I have promised myself for 2 years now that THIS YEAR I would get a new pair.

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Sure, for one night a year Santa pulls it together and manages to come across as wholesome and jolly. But what is he up to during the other 364 days? Free time mixed with celebrity and geographic isolation can be a dangerous combination. Unfortunately, it appears to have taken its toll on our fat festive friend —as the following products illustrate.

When UK based electrician (go figure) Alex Goodhind found that he couldn't make a cup of tea when his massive Christmas display was turned on, he decided to shell out £700 ($1600) to install a factory-strength 145amp power line to his home. The display took five weeks to put together, and it will run him about $1000 in additional electricity costs over the course of three weeks. Additional pic and info after the break.

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Last week I told you about how Rhys Millen plans to do a backflip in a truck on New Years Eve. Clearly, such a feat requires a specially-built jump, as you can't just lean back in a truck and have it do a flip. So here's a look at the jump they've build which includes a "flipper" near the top to help launch the truck into a rotation right at takeoff, presumable keeping the truck and giant-balled man inside safe to land right-side-up. The jump will be broadcast live on ESPN on New Years Eve and, presumably, will be all over YouTube the following day. [Red Bull Experiment]

Good news procrastinators and slackasses! Have you still not bought The Orange Box or another appropriately awesome game for your best bud with an Xbox 360? No worries, just give them a shitload of Microsoft Points from the comfort of your lonely computer chair. As of yesterday, you can gift points from the Microsoft Points site, but you've gotta know their Windows Live ID—Gamer Tag transactions are on the way early next year.

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The good news is, all you guys who have been dreading the use of Internet calling on airplanes may be in luck, because airlines and airborne service providers alike are considering a ban on Skype. The bad news is, they're also considering a ban on that age-old lonely traveler's companion, porn, says the AP. Here's a list of soon-to-be-Wi-Fi'd airlines and what services they plan to ban:

• Australia's Qantas Airways is testing high-speed net access by Panasonic Avionics Corp., which plans to block sites from "an objectionable list," including sites that feature porn or violence. (Note to grammar nuts: we're pretty sure they mean the sites are objectionable, not the list itself.) They may block Skype calls on the PC, but not on Wi-Fi handsets, which demand less bandwidth. Panasonic says that airlines could block incoming calls—and annoying ringtones.

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In our first hairless wonderland feature, we took a look at how you could rid your entire body of hair using three simple gadgets. The Mangroomer, the Flowbee and the Philips Bodygroom allows you to make sure your back, head and crotchular regions are free of any unslightly plumage. But what about the most important part of your body; the part that everyone looks at during a conversation (no, not your jiblets—and the Bodygroom has that covered)? Yes, we're talking about the face. And with the Braun Pulsonic or the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom, you can be sure your mug is as glossy as the top of Patrick Stewart's head.

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Charlie White and Stephen Schleicher present their definitive list of free software you can't live without—download them all and start using them today on this week's Coolness Roundup netcast. Then, get a hands-on evaluation of the good and bad points of the eStarling Wi-Fi digital picture frame, and hear Stephen's gleeful rant about retailers who don't know squat about the technology they're selling. [Free Podcast at Coolness Roundup or at the iTunes Store]

Promote heavenly peace in your household with the USB Punch Head, who cries out when you smack him down. This grotesque effigy shrieks with pathetic, mournful protests and whines that might just get the dogs to start howling along. This could be the perfect antidote for all those annoying relatives invading your household for the holidays—just plug him into a USB port, and then you can slip into your computer lair whenever the stress gets to be too much, taking it all out on this stupid shrunken head.

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We are publishing this story not because Kina Grannis has a wonderful voice. Or because she is good composer. Not even because she is beautiful and sexy and has a choir to match. Heck, we are not even doing it because of the song she has dedicated to Digg users, which is actually a really good one. We are publishing this story because a) we love her attitude, b) we want her to win the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest, c) her smile is an early Xmas present to all of us, dorks of the Intarwebs and d) all of the above. Judge by yourself looking at her Gotta Digg video after the jump:

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It's Xmas time, which means love, family, friendship, hope and, the really important part: Xmas stocking booty! And megalomaniac 22-year old Lauren Porter, a student at Bath Spa University, is going for a huge lot with her knitted scale 1:1 Ferrari. Seeing her posing next to it gives you the idea of how huge this thing is:

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Turns out, the U.S. military has a gas problem, though not the same kind as your Aunt Millie's. In order to cut down on its use of petroleum—over 5 billion barrels last year alone—the Pentagon might turn to a portable device that takes paper, wood and food waste and turns it into jet fuel. The science is already in place: a gasifier by Diversified Energy uses molten metal at 1,300°C to convert carbon-based material into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, then a fuel synthesiser from Velocys takes over, converting that stuff into hydrocarbon liquid fuel. It's not going to be carried on a backpack: "Portable" in this sense means between 150 and 1,500 tons, capable of making over 20,000 gallons of fuel per day out of all of that material, plus coal and natural gas. Still, this could eventually be something that we all get custom-mounted on our new DeLoreans. [Technology Review]

Any of you itching to let off fireworks over the holiday season should watch this safety film that comes with love from us to you—because, no matter how big our fireworks are, we geeks need to take care. Here's "jihadi group" the Liberation Army Against Freedom showing you how not to light your firecrackers this Christmas.

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