Peter Gamblin, a 24 year old former billiard champion in the UK, was busted for stealing a cellphone after the victim called him up and asked for his name and address.

Uh...yeah sure. That's Peter Gamblin...G. A. M. B. L. I. N.

According to the court, Gamblin gave the victim his name and address as an "act of bravado." It took a jury only 25 minutes to convict him. Needless to say, this guy is either the world's biggest moron (next to this guy) or he has a serious asshole friend that set him up to take the fall. [Telegraph via Fark]

Even though the antagonist of the story, George Broussard, co-owner of 3D realms, didn't consent to be interviewed for this story, Clive Thompson pieced enough together to get a good picture of what the hell went wrong. And it's obvious.

Here's the bottom line: bad management. Broussard kept stalling and stalling the release because he could, since he and the company were both bursting with enough cash to sustain things semi-indefinitely. Until they weren't.

Obsessed with moving the game into the latest engine, starting from Quake, to Unreal, to whatever-the-hell-else they were using between 1998 and now, Broussard basically condemned the game to development hell. If he had taken the boss's role of putting his foot down and making a decision to ship the game instead of constantly being in the engineer's role of always wanting the newest thing, we'd probably be playing the 3rd sequel for Duke Nukem by now.

Head over to Wired to see the whole story. [Wired]

I hope Santa's careful around Peter Terren's Christmas tree, because it's a Tesla coil with some color filters set up to make all the sparks, zaps, and electric arcs look oh-so-pretty. Yes, it's oh-so-pretty and oh-so-potentially-deadly.

This isn't the first time that Terren has made a Tesla coil Christmas tree, nor do I think it will be the last. He uses slow exposure photography to capture these incredible image, taking about two minutes for each of the shots. You can check out his site for some behind-the-scenes pictures of how he arranged the project and the safety measures he took while working with this coil.

In the meantime, I'll just be here ooh-ing and aaahh-ing for a while. [Tesla Down Under via Neatorama via Make]

President Obama's new "Passenger's Bill of Rights" should come in handy now with the massive apocalyptic snowstorms ravaging the northeast and cheering children's hearts. If you sit on the tarmac in a plane for more than two hours and haven't been given food or water, or for more than three hours and haven't been given the option of getting off the goddamn plane, the airline is now subject to massive fines ($27,500 per passenger).

Previously, pilots would keep planes on the tarmac as long as possible out of fear of losing their place in the takeoff line, and an average of 1,500 flights (114,000 passengers) per year violate these new laws. Message to American, Delta, USAir et al: You want us to sit for longer than a movie, you better bring me some damn pretzels. [NYTimes]

I wonder what's going through Mitch "oorange3" Adair's head in this picture. Is he annoyed that someone made yet another joke about hacking the Gibson or did he just lose the US Cyber Challenge? Either way, that's one unhappy-looking hacker.

The US Cyber Challenge in which Adair participated is a huge competition with the goal of hacking your opponents' computers while defending your own from attacks. It's not just a silly game for the sake of showing off either: The competition is designed to find talented individuals and recruit them to defend our country, companies, and computers from evil-doers' cyberattacks.

Neat competition, but I still wonder if Adair's frustration was because he didn't win or because of a lame joke. [CNN]

Update: Adair has emailed me to set the record straight. He explains that this isn't frustration or annoyance we're seeing. It's the "21st century's version of Rodin's The Thinker."

Bedbugs are more common than you might think, and the thought of these disgusting creatures biting into your flesh at night is enough to make anyone paranoid. This super cheap and easy DIY solution can bring you peace of mind.

The bedbugs are attracted to carbon dioxide, so you'll want to use something like dry ice to lure them out of your bed and into somewhere where you can confirm the infestation. All you need is an insulated 1/3 gallon jug, 2.5 pounds of dry ice pellets and a piece of paper. That's about $15 worth of equipment in total. And dry ice can be easily had at many supermarkets, ice cream stores, and the like. Wan-Tien Tsai of Rutgers University explains the setup, which uses the dry ice and a type of rigging to trap the bedbugs inside:

She stood the jug in a plastic cat food dish with a piece of paper taped on the outside of the dish as a ramp up to the rim. The bowl's steep, slippery inside, with an added dusting of talcum powder, kept bugs from crawling out again.

In tests in real apartments, the homemade setup detected bedbugs as well, or better, than did two brands of professional exterminating equipment

I'll tell you what, even if you don't suspect bedbugs at home, I wouldn't hesitate to use something like this at that seedy hotel you might find yourself staying at for the holidays. [Wired Image via WestchesterGov]

NZXT's new Hades case looks like a primitive stone carving, worshipped by Pacific Islanders sometime in the last millennia. It gazes upon you, solemn and silent, imposing and intimidating, powerful and peaceful.

The Hades has nine 5.25-inch bays (or five 5.25-inch and four 3.5-inch, if you prefer) and has the extra legroom for massive, insecurity-compensating cards like the ATI 5970 as well as some pretty substantial cooling mechanisms.

Airflow is optimized with 5 fans(dual 200mm intake, 200 mm front fan, dual top 140mm fans, side 200mm fan, and rear 120mm exhaust). NZXT includes all the fans with the exception of the top 140mm and also provides a dual fan 8W per channel controller giving enthusiasts freedom to manage intake and exhaust airflow. A three temperature display on the front panel allows the user to see the temperature inside the chassis even when the door is closed.

Hades is available now from NZXT for $90. [NZXT]

The WSJ says that CBS and Disney are seriously considering Apple's plan to kill your cable box with iTunes TV show subscriptions. Oh, and that the Apple tablet thing is coming in March.

The WSJ says that Apple's plan for iTunes TV show subscriptions would have you pay a monthly fee for "access to some TV shows from a selection" of major networks, and that CBS and Disney are the two most seriously thinking about it. CBS would apparently offer up shows from both CBS and the CW, like Gossip Girl, while Disney would be offering up shows from ABC, ABC Family and the Disney Channel. What's interesting is that the networks could actually make more money per subscriber than they do from cable companies, with broadcast networks picking up $2-$4 per subscriber, and cable networks grabbing $1-$2. (Which has to piss cable companies off, no doubt why networks are treading carefully around this proposal.) Originally, Apple had floated something more like a traditional cable payment, like paying $30 a month for a big bundle of TV stuff.

All of this, of course, would fit into Apple's larger plan to remake the iTunes model with Lala, and Apple hopes to launch the service sometime next year. While the way Apple says songs and TV shows now would stick around according to the Journal, the combination of web-and-streaming-oriented music and TV subscriptions fundamentally changes the way iTunes would work.

Oh, and of course, this is all happening as Apple "finalizes its plans for a tablet device," Apple's trying to launch "by the end of March." Interesting, that's what an analyst heard not too long ago. Killing cable and up-ending the publishing industry in one fell swoop? That's a pretty busy 2010. [WSJ]

City Center, the newest megaresort in Las Vegas, boasts a few awesome-looking attractions, including gigantic ice popsicles, water tornadoes and laser-colored fountains.

All of these attractions were designed by WET, the design firm behind the famous Bellagio fountains. Fast Company got a tour of the new facilities and WET's offerings, and they look pretty impressive.

Sure, there's a recession on and Vegas has been one of the cities hit hardest by the disintegrated housing market. But god dammit, if I can't live in a world with gigantic ice sculptures that are automatically created just to melt ever day, I don't want to live at all. [Fast Company]