Pariah Burke's List: __Miscellany Preschedule

Unfortunately, when the last leap second was added back in 2012, more than a few sites had trouble keeping pace. As reported by Phys.org, Foursquare, Reddit, LinkedIn, and StumbledUpon all crashed when the leap second ticked unexpectedly into place.

Growing up in rural Iowa, roadkill was basically a fact of life. Skunks were the most dreaded, for obvious reasons, but cars mowed down raccoons, squirrels, pets, and — sometimes fatally for drivers and passengers — deer. Roads often pass through ecosystems where a lot of animals make their homes. Which is why, when Montana's department of transportation wanted to build a new road, they built a land bridge for

Corpses can be brought to orgasm, turkeys will mate with a head on a stick, and other bizarre factoids

At Christmas, differences between ourselves and our elderly relatives can be shoved into garish spotlight – our backgrounds; our upbringings; our educations; our politics and social outlooks; our attitudes towards religion, ‘authority’, life and death, money, health, gender issues, race, tradition, relationships; and so on. Note that one difference I have not mentioned in the list is age; I have not mentioned it, because it is not, per se, a relevant difference.

But gamers deserve love too, and several sites have popped up over the years that can help gamers find romantic partners who also share a love for video games. If you’re in that boat, give these online dating networks a try and see how they work for you.

Your smartphone — and other devices that use Wi-Fi — broadcast a unique number when they search for nearby Wi-Fi networks. A device’s unique MAC address is sent along with “probe requests” that search for nearby Wi-Fi networks.

Everybody loves a huge space empire. A far-flung interplanetary civilization combines the romance of exploration with the pride and cool-factor of building something. But not every star-spanning regime is a viable proposition. Here are 10 star-empires from science fiction that make economic sense.

Text expanders (a.k.a., on your phone: "keyboard shortcuts" in iOS and "personal dictionary" in Android) are great timesavers: Tap a few keys, and instantly whole words or phrases are entered. Here's a very efficient shortcut if you have multiple email addresses.

For all those people worried about their children becoming witches from reading the Harry Potter books, your worries are over. Last week, FanFiction.net received an upload from an Evangelical housewife; Grace-Ann Parsons (codenamed, “proudhousewife,”) entitled, Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles. Mrs. Parsons, a stay-at-home mom, has taken it upon herself to remove all the witchcraft from Harry Potter and replaced it with Christian-appropriate themes. In this reimagined world, Dumbledore is a married reverend, Harry and friends are Americans, and the evil Voldemort is part of the U.S. government trying to restrict Freedom of Religion.

Normally, to cover your tracks on a potentially controversial exchange, all you'd need to do is delete the message (or call) from your history. That still works, but as Mashable has discovered, deleting a call or message does not remove the contact from the recents list that appears on the app switcher

A wellspring of wearables exploded onto store shelves this year, with everyone from Motorola to Samsung, Sony, LG, and Asus all throwing contenders into the ring.

Check out our top wearable picks for this year, but keep checking back!

His theory: if the most popular highlights occur in the first half of the book, it might mean that people aren't reading it all the way through:

Chanoy got their hands on seven minutes of what looks like the rough assembly of the cantina scene. The quality is pretty bad and the sound cuts out several times, but as a fan, I found it super interesting to watch. We’ve also got a few photos and preproduction art via Movies.com.

And I’m not talking about curved screens, which are just as rigid as a regular screen, yet arguably less versatile. I’m talking about digital displays that can match paper in flexibility. Where are those?

Bendable displays are the future. Holographic displays would be more impressive, that’s true, but that probably won’t happen for a long while. Realistically speaking, flexible screen displays will be the next big revolution. Here’s how you will benefit.

Fox said the collaboration between his foundation and Intel began in spring, when a pilot group of 25 people measured their tremors and sleep patterns and streamed the data in-real time to the cloud. Intel has been providing the servers and the software to collect and organize the biometric data from Parkinson’s patients, and it’s also working on algorithms that can easily analyze the data, according to Diane Bryant, senior VP and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group.

Google Drive, and the apps in it—Docs, Sheets, and Slides—are great for people looking for a simple Office suite. It's free, makes collaboration easy, and pretty much anyone can use it. But if you're used to something more traditional, like Microsoft Office, you may be hesitant to use it. Here's how to make Google Drive work more like the desktop suites you're used to.

A US man has been awarded $7.2m (£4.4m) in damages after claiming he developed "popcorn lung" from inhaling the artificial butter in microwave popcorn.