Survival:

That frozen over pond you’ve been hiking over all winter is warming up, so do yourself a favor and check out Wired’s illustrated guide to survive falling through ice.

The guide is simple and direct, with four main steps and some sound advice for handling the pyschological aspects of the scary situation. For example:

As you hit the water, a physiological reaction known as torso reflex will cause you to gasp for air. Force yourself to take slow, deep breaths. You’ll begin to shiver violently and feel intense pain; try to remember that these are natural responses and not life-threatening.

Head on over to Wired to read the full details. It’s good advice, and learning how to survive falling through ice is certainly a good thing, but we’d suggest avoiding that frozen pond altogether if you have a choice.

League Of Super Evil:

A ragged gang of supervillains make their debut on Cartoon Network tonight, and you may just be one of their first conquests. The League Of Super Evil brings cuteness and slapstick to mega-villainy. Spoilers!

I watched a few episodes of League at Wondercon and… it was fun. Not Earth-shattering, or super clever, or outrageous. But good fun. In a nutshell, the League Of Super Evil follows a group of supervillain kids living in a house together. There’s Voltar, their evil leader; Red Menace, who’s green instead of red and is the group’s muscle; Doktor Frogg, who’s the group’s mad scientist; and Doomageddon, the dog.

The show avoids a lot of the cliches you’d expect from a set-up like that. For one thing, the L.O.S.E. spends most of its time fighting other supervillains, not superheroes. (Although there’s a pretty hilarious send-up of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in one episode.) For another, the plots mostly don’t revolve around the supervillains trying to take over the world. More often, Voltar wants to impress the other kids in the neighborhood, or win a bet or something.

In one episode, Voltar brags to the neighbor kids that he gets a zillion TV channels… so he sends Doktor Frogg up into space to rig a special satellite to get a zillion channels for their TV set. And in another episode, the tiny Voltar steals another supervillain’s giant suit of armor so he can beat another kid at a basketball slam-dunk contest…. but that attracts the attention of the afore-mentioned Power Rangers clones. In a third episode — and by far, the funniest I saw — Doktor Frogg builds a machine that will plug up all the toilets in the city, unless the city agrees to his demands… but Doktor Frogg has no clue what those demands are.

Oh yeah… Did I mention there are a lot of poop and fart jokes? Those pretty much form the underpinnings of this series, which is not at all a bad thing. At the Wondercon screening, at least one audience member mentioned it was reminiscent of Ren And Stimpy in terms of its aesthetic, but it’s a lot gentler and sillier. The characters are basically losers, who stumble around in their giant suits of armor or go to ridiculous lengths to prove they’re badass. According to Wikipedia, some other storylines include “selling watered down lemonade” and trying to get a table at the most elite supervillain restaurant in town.

It’s cute and fun, and will probably spawn a cult following. The first episode is tonight at 9 on the Cartoon Network.

Sometimes it’s as if merchandisers have never seen the movie they’re cashing in on. For example, the makers of The Dark Knight Joker Combination Ski Mask and Beanie. Way to memorialize Heath Ledger, guys.

All Ledgerisms aside, is it wrong of me to be worried about people who saw The Dark Knight and thought, “That kind of creepy guy with the obvious lack of morality? I wanna have him on my face when it’s cold!”? Also, what is a “combination ski mask and beanie” anyway? Now I know that I’m going to have nightmares tonight.

The Dark Knight Joker Combination Ski Mask & Winter Beanie [Amazon] (Via)

rises from the ashes as a rapper - The Ampersand

Remember when Joaquin Phoenix announced that he was quitting acting last October? And that he was doing it to become a musician?

Well, a bearded and bedraggled Phoenix performed his first announced concert over the weekend, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Doug Elfman.  It was a real head-scratcher too, seeing has how Phoneix rapped (you read that correctly – rapped) the whole time.

It was also a head-scratcher because nobody’s sure if this is some kind of strange hoax a-la Andy Kaufman or if Phoenix is actually trying to build viability as a musician. It doesn’t help that the entire escapade is being documented on film by his brother-in-law, Casey Affleck.

But Phoenix personally told Elfman that this is no hoax, that he is actually putting himself out there, risking outright rejection, to pursue what he wants to do: “I have to be true to myself,” he said.

Reactions to Phoenix’s performance were mixed, Elfman writes, with some people cheering and others saying “he sounded like Big Bird.”

Still, Elfman is offering this sage advice to Phoenix:

“Do the art you want to do; if you compromise and fail, you’ll hate yourself.”

Mythbusting:

With the recession causing enough stress for all of us, the British Medical Journal decides to bust several common medical myths—for example, reading in dim light won’t ruin your eyesight, so go nuts.

Among the myths busted, BMJ notes that:

• Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.
• You don’t lose excess body heat from your head. (You can leave your hat at home if you don’t want to muss your hair!)
• Eating at night does not make you fat. (Though the obvious rules still apply—you can’t eat more calories than you burn.)
• Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence that you can cure a hangover.
• Shaving does not cause hair to grow back faster, darker, or coarser.
• Reading in dim light will not destroy your eyesight.
• You don’t need to drink eight glasses of water a day, so save yourself the bloat.

Any old wives’ tales you’d like to add to the list? Let’s hear it in the comments. Photo by bald_eagle89.

Medical Myths (Part One) [British Medical Journal via NYT]
Medical Myths (Part Two) [British Medical Journal]

| MakeUseOf.com

It’s 2009! The ghosts of the old year have been driven away. Time to start anew - fresh and clean! Are you ready?

So have you been able to keep your New Year’s resolutions of the last year?  If not, did you make wise resolutions for the New Year?

You likely already have all the knowledge and tools required to keeping resolutions. All it takes is an idea of how to use that and the motivation to start.

If you’re uncertain about where to start and have a bad record of breaking New Year’s resolutions from previous years, let us show you how it can be done. After all, you don’t want to end up doing it like this guy:

Making Good Resolutions and the Right Attitude

If you need some help in making wise resolutions and setting your mind right to sticking to them, I recommend reading the articles How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions and 10 Tips for Keeping New Year’s Resolutions on eHow and About.com, respectively. Briefly, they recommend to…

• be realistic and aim low
• keep the number of resolutions down, don’t overload yourself
• plan ahead and outline your plan
• tell everyone you know, so they can remind you
• when in danger of failing, make a pros and cons list for motivation
• keep talking about your resolutions
• track your progress
• reward yourself
• don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, some failure is OK
• make an effort to stick to your resolutions
• wait until spring for making resolutions
• keep trying and start anew anytime of the year

Reminders

As a regular reader of MakeUseOf you have all the necessary tools at your fingertips. But a ton of tools is roughly a ton too much. So let’s focus on a few good tools to keep you at your heels.

HassleMe (directory)

HassleMe will constantly send eMail reminders at random intervals, so you never know when the reminder will pull you out of your mental nap.

Resnooze (directory)

With Resnooze you can set up daily, weekly or monthly eMail reminders for recurring tasks. Of course it can serve as a reminder service for keeping your New Year’s resolutions. In each eMail you can edit the frequency or delete the reminder.

Remindr (directory)

Remindr can send simultaneous reminders on Twitter, Jabber, GTalk, your eMail and cell phone. Very simple to set up, however it has to be set up again and again.

Track Your Progress

Qwitter (directory)

Qwitter will help you quit smoking. On the website you can track how many cigarettes you are smoking each and every day, keep a journal to record your state of mind, view your progress and share the experience with others.

The great thing about Qwitter is that it’s fully integrated with Twitter. A Twitter account is actually required to sign into Qwitter. So you can easily hook up with your friends and have them motivate you.

Gyminee (article from Anthony)

If your resolution is to eat better and work out, Gyminee is for you. Gyminee provides workout programs, you can track your workouts, monitor your diet, keep a food diary, meet people who are doing the same and track your progress, for example on your iPhone and pass challenges until you reach your goals.

traineo

If you want to eat better and lose weight, you should have a look at this website. During the sign-up process you can select in which units (American, British, Metric) your progress will be measured, also your current weight and height, goal weight and time frame will be recorded. Finally, you can choose motivators by entering the names and eMail addresses of up to 3 friends or family members.

When that is done you can track your activities, the food you had during the day, your weight, keep a log and reframe your goals. Your progress is relentlessly recorded in pretty graphs.

Will you stick to your New Year’s resolutions this year? Let us know whether you already made it last year and how you made it!

Picture Credits: v_hujer, woodsy

Best Of 2008:

When it comes to saving time and money, sometimes the best approach means rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. Check out the best DIY projects featured here in 2008 and beyond.

Note on our definition of “most popular”: These are the posts that were viewed the most by readers, a number which is often skewed by Google or Digg or links by other popular sites. As such one could argue that most views does not equal best, and one would be right, so we did a little pruning to keep the list high quality.

Most Popular DIY Projects Published in 2008

First, get a load of the most recent stuff: the most-viewed DIY posts of this past year.

• DIY Invisible Floating Bookshelf (includes video clip)
• DIY Camera Stabilizer On-the-Cheap (includes video clip)
• Backyard Shed Turned Home Office—See photos of a reader’s awesome home-built backyard shed office.
• Set Up Cheap Ambient Lighting with Rope Lights—Jason lights up his workspace.
• Stash Valuables in a Full Soda Bottle (includes video clip)
• Build Your Own Wire Photo Wall—Gina rigs up a custom wire photo wall with digital prints.
• Build a Home Theater PC for Less than $200
• Microwave an Instant Chocolate Cake in a Coffee Mug (includes video clip)—Gina tries the microwave coffee cup cake, and it’s fascinating and gross all at once.
• Drink Delicious Water with a Reverse Osmosis Filter—Jason installs his own water filter under the sink.
• Turn Your Broken Laptop into an Arcade Cocktail Cabinet
• Increase Your Privacy with $16 DIY Window Frosting—Jason frosts his windows so passerby don’t see him in his skivvies.

Most Popular DIY Projects of All Time

While 2008’s list is pretty good, we’ve had some doozies appear on these pages beyond the last 12 months. Check out our most-viewed DIY posts of all time.

• Turn your $60 router into a $600 router—Adam soups up his Linksys router with the DD-WRT firmware.
• Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800—Adam runs OS X on a home-built PC.
• Turn a flashlight into a handheld burning laser (includes video)—Perhaps the most controversial “you’ll shoot somebody’s eye out” story we’ve ever run.
• Transform Your Classic Xbox into a Killer Media Center—Gina takes the leap into soft-modding her classic black Xbox.
• Make your own air conditioner
• Boost Your Wireless Signal With a Homemade Wi-Fi Extender (includes video)
• The Cordless Workspace (sort of)—Adam gets control of all the cables under his desk.
• 10 ways to entertain young children for $1 or less (without the TV)
• How to install a hard drive
• Turn an old hard drive into an external drive

Most Popular Do-it-yourself Top 10 Listicles of 2008

If your DIY chops are more needed at home, at the office, in the garage, or with the camera, check out our most-viewed DIY top 10 lists that published this past year. These listicles package the best DIY technqiues around a certain theme.

• Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control
• Top 10 Office Supply Hacks
• Top 10 IKEA Furniture Mods
• Top 10 DIY Laptop Stands
• Top 10 Printable Paper Productivity Tools
• Top 10 DIY Home Projects
• Top 10 Home Automation Projects
• Top 10 DIY Photography Tools
• Top 10 DIY Car Hacks
• Top 10 Summer Projects

What DIY project did you pull off this past year that you’re most proud of? Tell us about it in the comments.