Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Because you can never have too much Star Trek around the house, Corrigan Studio created this Star Trek: The Next Generation LCARS 16-Piece Dinnerware Set, available on Wayfair. For those of you unfamiliar, LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) is the computer operating system seen in the show.

Presumably inspired by my nightmares, the Mecrob Spider Table Lamp is a metal robot spider that comes in kit form. The spider features an abdomen full of fairy lights and four spotlight-style eye lights for illuminating whatever mad scientist project you’re currently working on.

Because when it comes to computing, there’s always room for unimprovement, Google Japan has created a 5.4-foot long keyboard with all the keys in a single row. Presumably inspired by the dancing piano keyboard scene from Big, its creators say the keyboard prevents having to look in every direction for the key you need since it can only be left or right and not up or down.

The brainchild of Matthias Werner, the HDD Clicker 2.0 is a tiny computer board that attaches to your solid state drive (SSD) and makes it sound like an old platter-style hard disk drive (HDD). And it doesn’t just make the sounds all willy-nilly either; it only does it when your hard drive is actually reading or writing.

Inspired by the deep sea angler fish, these slides from HelloSlippers feature a cartoon version of the goofy-looking fish, complete with a glow-in-the-dark lure dangling above your feet. Granted, I’m not sure what you’re going to catch wearing these at night, but I’d count my toes afterward.

Because who can be bothered to manually adjust their desk lamp (what are we, peasants?), the Werobot Pino Lamp on Kickstarter is an intelligent robotic auto-tracking lamp that can follow book pages, your face, or certain colors to ensure they’re always well illuminated.

In Back to the Future, Marty loved to play the guitar. I’m thinking if he ever asked Doc Brown to make him a musical instrument, it might have looked like this. Sure, he’d have to learn to play the bass, but I’m sure he’d be fine with that.

Litter boxes: they’re generally unattractive. Plus, they smell. That’s two strikes against them already. Looking to change that, the Pet Object Litter Box on Kickstarter is a cat litter box in the shape of a dodecahedron to compliment the rest of your tasteful geometric home decor.

Already available as a 1,023-piece, $140 set, LEGO has just announced an Ultimate Collector’s Series version of The Mandalorian’s Razor Crest ship, with 6,187 pieces and a price tag of $600. Ultimate Collector indeed – you’d have to be to shell out six big bills for a LEGO set.

Undergraduate students living in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) dorms are invited every year to take part in Resident Exploration Week (REX), during which the school’s residence halls host a variety of different activities for students to participate in.

Multi-national convenience store giant 7-Eleven has teamed up with Crocs to produce a line of branded footwear sporting the store’s iconic (but not necessarily tasteful) orange, red, and green logo colors. Those…wow, those are really something.

Because why not give the people what they didn’t ask for, Pepsi is giving away 2,000 sets of s’mores ingredient flavored sodas to lucky winners in a contest. To enter (until Tuesday, September 27th, 2022), follow @Pepsi on Instagram or Twitter and share how you like to s’more with hashtags #PepsiSmores and #Sweepstakes.

Pure genius Instructables user mikeasaurus has created step-by-step instructions detailing how to create a Baby Flask, a doll baby in a chest-mounted baby carrier you can fill with booze. A lot of booze too. Goodbye, hip flask, hello, Baby Flask!

Because almost every mode of transportation is improved with more horsepower, inventor and YouTuber Joel Creates replaced the pathetically underpowered 12-volt motors of a children’s Star Wars Landspeeder toy with a small jet engine. And, I think I speak for every speed-lover here when I say, where was this when I was a kid?

With all the excitement surrounding the upcoming Barbie movie (no? Just me?), it only makes sense someone would cash in on the craze with a Barbie and Ken couples’ Halloween costume. Officially licensed by Rasta Imposta and available on Amazon (affiliate link), the costume includes two giant doll toy boxes for your and your significant other (or a friend) to get inside and become the iconic couple.

Built by astronomer and LEGO maniac tonysmyuncle (that’s cool, Brent’s my uncle), this LEGO model of the James Webb Space Telescope is constructed as a replica of the one actually sent into space by NASA. It’s currently looking for support on the LEGO Ideas website to be considered for production by LEGO; it’s appropriately scaled to the size of minifigs, who I assume will use it to search for UFOs.