(photographer unknown): India's Mangalyaan satellite attained Martian orbit on Wednesday; at $74m, it's "staggeringly cheap" for an orbiter. Martian spacecraft staffers at Indian space control, September 2014

The latest Bundle of Holding features 3 games for $8 or 7 games for $19; all created by woman devs, all delivered as DRM-free PDFs, with 10% of proceeds to… Read the rest of the article: Bundle of DRM-free RPGs created by women game-devs

It's been three years since we last mentioned the astounding Man From Mars Radio Hat, so here is your triennial reminder that we are a fallen people, our glory years… Read the rest of the article: Man From Mars Radio Hat

The Philadelphia run, which recreates a scene from Rocky II, raises money to buy sneakers for a charity; MGM has seen its success and has partnered with a for-profit company… Read the rest of the article: MGM shuts down volunteer "Rocky" charity run

The subprime auto-lending business — writing car-loans to people who can't afford them — is fuelled by GPS-enabled immobilizers that let lenders track and shut down cars whose drivers violate… Read the rest of the article: Class war meets the War on General Purpose Computers

Robert sez, "Dungeons & Dragons, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, is about to release its new Monster Manual — the original Monster Manual was a watershed moment in human history,… Read the rest of the article: Monster Manual: bestiaries from 16th Century/1977/2014

Sasha writes, "Since 2010, the detention bed quota – a Congressional mandate that requires the incarceration of 34,000 immigrants in jails and detention centers in the U.S. at any given… Read the rest of the article: #EndTheQuota: stop the Congressional mandate to jail 34K immigrants each night

It's Banned Books Week, and what better way to celebrate than with a review of the first James Tiptree Award Anthology, published in 2004 by the committee who award the… Read the rest of the article: Revisiting the first Tiptree Award anthology

Logan County, Oklahoma Sheriff Jim Bauman created an extensive set of secret files on the citizens in his jurisdiction, inadvertently recreating Welcome to Nightvale's running gag about the Sheriff's Secret… Read the rest of the article: OK Sheriff LARPs "Welcome to Nightvale"

Andrew Tierney had a close look at Heatmiser's popular wifi-enabled thermostat and found it to be riddled with security vulnerabilities.

Erik sends us his "Decadent Minimalist One" Kickstarter, "a minimalist wallet that is machined from a single billet of 7075-T6 true aircraft-grade aluminum: No screws, no rivets, no straps, no… Read the rest of the article: Kickstarting a wallet machined from a single piece of aluminium

Emmanuel Goldstein from 2600 Magazine writes, "Volume 4 of The Hacker Digest has been put into PDF format, comprised of issues of 2600 Magazine from 1987." This was the first… Read the rest of the article: Get 2600's archives from 1987

Etsy-based shoepainter Beressy Art will make you custom Walking Dead shoes for $126.05, including the shoes — you get to specify the design and characters (also available: My Little Pony,… Read the rest of the article: Hand-painted custom Walking Dead shoes

Printer security sucks — but Michael Jordon's work on hacking the firmware of the standalone Canon Pixma printer is a more playful example of that suckitude than ever seen before.

Anya Ulinich's 2008 debut novel Petropolis, marked her out as a master of tragicomic romance; now she's back with a huge, hilarious, bitter graphic novel about sex, immigration, the Russian soul, and heartbreak. Cory Doctorow reviews Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel.

One year Better way to organize kids' clothing departments: Ever since our daughter's birth, my wife Alice and I have found ourselves shopping the "boys" section of the department stores… Read the rest of the article: Blogging History: Non-gender kids' clothes retail; London cops apologize for geek-mugging; Lucas ships Xbox malware

Rick Kleffel from the Agony Column podcast interviews Lauren Beukes — author of Broken Monsters (see this week's review) — in fascinating detail, "Lauren Beukes discusses Broken Monsters, The Shining… Read the rest of the article: Interview with Lauren "Broken Monsters" Beukes

These handmade Darth Vader cufflinks, $22.49 from Cuff Relations, are a pretty good power meeting accessory (cue "Don't fail me again, Admiral"). (via Geeky Merch)

A great Reddit thread asks "What's something you're pretty sure only your body does, but have been too embarrassed to ask," and comes up with some genuinely great responses.

As reported here, almost all of them were issued by a single cop, who hates legal weed and subjected his victims to humiliating rituals like flipping a coin to see… Read the rest of the article: Seattle prosecutor drops all public marijuana tickets