Hasta La Gadget!

Police said authorities had fatally shot a man at the scene of the stabbing.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term “orrery,” it’s one of several words used to describe a mechanical contraption that simulates the orbit of planets, moons, and stars. Some variants are also known as a “tellurium” or a “loxocosm,” all of which are harder to pronounce than “planet machine.”

Basically, these machines demonstrate the relationship between planetary orbits and speeds by using a complex series of gears. Over the years, orreries have turned up in clocks, watches, and interactive sculptures, and now you can make your own with this flat-pack kit I spotted over on Etsy.

The Dreipunkt Tellurium kit comes with everything you need to track the positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, as they turn in orbit throughout the year. In all, there are more than 60 pieces in the model, which also includes wood glue, and an assembly manual with both German and English instructions.

You can grab one of these cool desktop playthings over on Laserdeko’s Etsy Shop for about $110.

Any one of The Good Place’s throwaway gags would be a delight to see played out in its entirety. From Chidi actually forcing himself to eat the Peep’s chili to seeing Tahani ruin one of many celebrity relationships, they’re all tantalizing. But I doubt any of them would be quite as fun to watch as William Jackson…

Read more…

But don’t put your snowshoes away just yet. Phil’s recent prognostications have rarely been correct.

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) is being criticized for its decision to ban battle royale game Fortnite from its high school esports program. The reason for the ban, according to the association’s Commissioner Julian Tackett, is that it is a ‘shooter’ game and as such has no place ‘in our schools.’ The ban follows PlayVS’s recently announced partnership … Continue reading