Blogroll

If your 3D printer is missing these 5 features, then it's time to upgrade

How-To Geek - 1 hour 32 min ago

If you're still happy with your 3D printer, there's no reason to stop using it. However, if it's been a long time since you bought your machine, you might not be aware that the floor has been raised considerably.

Categories: IT General, Technology

How to move your Android Auto taskbar to the side (or bottom)

How-To Geek - 1 hour 47 min ago

Android Auto is quite literally the same Android that’s on your phone, but it doesn’t have the same level of customization. There are no alternate home screen launchers or icon packs. However, one thing you can do is move the taskbar—though the option is not easy to find.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Sony Music, Warner sue Anthropic, alleging copyright infringement

Mashable - 2 hours 11 min ago

Music giants Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music have just filed a potentially multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Anthropic, and the publishers aren't mincing words.

The lawsuit, filed Friday evening in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, calls Anthropic "the culprits behind one of the largest and most blatant ongoing thefts of intellectual property in history." Sony and Warner also named Anthropic CEO and cofounder Dario Amodei and cofounder Benjamin Mann in the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, first reported by Music Business Worldwide, the music companies claim that Anthropic has carried out "a brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works on a massive scale" to train its popular Claude AI models. Sony and Warner accused Anthropic of having "reaped enormous profits" from the stolen music.

Sony and Warner are seeking $150,000 in damages per work as well as $25,000 per copyright violation. The music companies, which are the second- and third-largest in the industry, allege that thousands of titles have been stolen, putting compensation in the range of billions of dollars.

SEE ALSO: Midjourney pushes to expose studios' own AI practices in copyright fight

The publishers have specifically accused Anthropic of "blatant theft" of song titles such as "Ain’t No Mountain High Enough," "All I Want for Christmas is You," "Eye of the Tiger," and "Here Comes Santa Claus."

Anthropic has been hit with intellectual property lawsuits before. In fact, Sony and Warner's lawsuit directly references the $1.5 billion settlement that Anthropic reached with book publishers earlier this year in a similar case where the AI company was accused of training models on stolen works.

The world's largest music company, Universal Music Group (UMG), previously filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Anthropic. UMG, along with Concord Music Group and ABKCO Music, filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in 2023 and again earlier this year. Their latest suit seeks more than $3 billion in damages.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Windows 11's most underrated keyboard shortcut can change how you work

How-To Geek - 2 hours 32 min ago

There's an absurd number of Windows keyboard shortcuts for mastering system navigation, beyond the simple Ctrl + C/V/X for copying, pasting, and cutting. Some I use regularly include Win + I for opening Settings, Ctrl + K for inserting hyperlinks into text, and Win + Shift + S for opening Snipping Tool for all my screen capture and annotation needs.

Categories: IT General, Technology

These 3 third-party Plex add-ons unlock features that Plex Pass won't give you

How-To Geek - 2 hours 47 min ago

Plex is probably the easiest way to get started with building your own media server, but even if you choose to upgrade to Plex Pass, it still doesn't give you everything you might want. Fortunately, there are some third-party apps that can fill in the gaps. I keep my setup fairly lean and built around three main add-ons for detailed stats, different ways to stream and download, and adding a request service.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Cycling is going high-tech in some exciting ways—here’s what to look out for

How-To Geek - 3 hours 2 min ago

You never forget how to ride a bike, but you can be forgiven for not staying up to date with the latest cycling tech trends. These include new categories of bikes, safety improvements, and more gadgetry than ever before.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Stop putting NVMe SSDs in USB enclosures: You're crippling your hardware

How-To Geek - 3 hours 32 min ago

SSD speeds are far from the only thing that matters. In fact, many will say that they're almost irrelevant, and buying an expensive SSD is a waste of money.

Categories: IT General, Technology

I thought my mini PC's SSD was dying, but 3 simple tests saved me from buying a replacement

How-To Geek - 3 hours 32 min ago

Recently, my mini PC started acting up. It would freeze every so often, and Windows just didn't feel as responsive as it normally did. Nothing had completely stopped working, but the system had become unreliable enough that I knew something was wrong.

Categories: IT General, Technology

I built my own Android expense tracker because every "free" app wanted a subscription

How-To Geek - 4 hours 2 min ago

It seems like everything today has a subscription attached to it—whether a video streaming app, a food diary app, or even a calculator app. No matter the intent, there is a paywall for additional features.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Crumbl Cookies just announced a Minecraft menu, complete with exclusive mystery spoons

Mashable - 4 hours 3 min ago

TL;DR: Crumbl is teaming up with Minecraft on a limited-time menu featuring six square, Minecraft-inspired treats topped with fan-favorite mobs. You'll also have the chance to score a special limited-edition mystery spoon.

If you have a Gen Alpha kid in your life, you probably know more than you'd like to admit about Minecraft (and honestly, Crumbl cookies). Now, the two brands are banding together to give your teens and tweens the collab they've always wanted.

SEE ALSO: Herschel just launched a Minecraft collab in time for back-to-school shopping. Here's how to buy.

On Aug. 30, Crumbl is dropping a limited-edition menu featuring six different Minecraft-inspired treats. Every single cookie and cake on the menu will be square (obvs) and come with a mob topper.

The menu, which runs through Sept. 5, includes a Lemon Poppyseed Cookie (Bee topper), Cookies & Cream Sandwich (Enderman topper), Creeper Key Lime Sandwich (Creeper topper — and undoubtedly the one my nephew asks for), a Grass Block Cake, Cherry Blossom Cookie (Pig topper), and a Cookie Butter Cookie (Chicken topper).

If you're one of the first 200 people to buy a Minecraft 6-Pack on launch day, you'll get a Launch Day Exclusive spoon (limited to one per person). Credit: Crumbl

If you want to go all out, Crumbl is also releasing special-edition Crumbl x Minecraft Mystery Spoons. If you're one of the first 200 people to buy a Minecraft 6-Pack on launch day, you'll get a Launch Day Exclusive spoon (limited to one per person).

Categories: IT General, Technology

These little-known Excel clicks can save you time every day

How-To Geek - 4 hours 32 min ago

Some of Excel's most useful features aren't hidden behind complicated menus or obscure keyboard shortcuts. They're built into controls you probably pass over without a second thought. Here are some that can save you time every day.

Categories: IT General, Technology

My wife loves her Kindle page turner, but I can't believe how it actually works

How-To Geek - 4 hours 47 min ago

I'd never considered getting a page turner for my Kindle. When my wife got hers, I finally understood the appeal, but I couldn't believe how the device actually worked.

Categories: IT General, Technology

NASAs Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches in historic moment

Mashable - 5 hours 31 min ago

NASA's latest flagship telescope is on its way to a million‑mile‑distant orbit to map the universe and hunt for distant planets.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope lifted off at 7:26 a.m. ET on Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Riding a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, the spacecraft separated from its rocket and began its space journey.

Mission leaders say Roman will reshape astronomy by pairing a wide, sharp view of the universe with powerful tools to probe dark matter, dark energy, and distant exoplanets.

The observatory, with a lifecycle cost of about $4.3 billion, will make its data public as soon as it's processed. And what a firehose of data it's expected to collect. Hubble gathered 172 terabytes of science data in its first 30 years; Roman will downlink about 1.4 terabytes every day, said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA. What Roman can do in a single month to survey the Milky Way would take Hubble about 100 years.

"The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is a sheer powerhouse," Fox said. "It is literally a speed machine. The speed at which we'll be scanning the sky, delivering vast amounts of data, and returning results will be at an unprecedented rate never done before."

SEE ALSO: NASA's Roman telescope is built to find what Hubble and Webb miss

Under the hood, Roman is about the size of a tour bus and as heavy as a male killer whale. Its nearly 8-foot primary mirror matches Hubble's in size but is less than a quarter of the weight, thanks to newer technology. A set of six solar panels, each about the size of a large door, will provide four kilowatts of power.

Roman is headed to a spot called the second sun‑Earth Lagrange point, or L2, the same orbit around the sun as the James Webb Space Telescope. From that vantage point, Roman can stare at a vast, steady slice of the sky without Earth photobombing the view.

"The images it captures will be so large there is not a screen in existence large enough to show them," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in April. 

The U.S. space agency developed the telescope with a five-year primary mission in mind. Fuel will determine the observatory's ultimate lifetime, but engineers designed the spacecraft so that it could be refueled in space, should future on-orbit servicing and fill-ups become possible.

The mission is named for Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer and a key architect of the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. She championed space‑based telescopes that see above Earth's haze.

Roman carries two main instruments: the Wide Field Instrument, a 300‑megapixel infrared camera, and the Coronagraph Instrument, a tech demo that will try to directly photograph planets in the glare of nearby stars.

In most telescopes, the image is sharpest in the middle and softens toward the edges. Roman is the opposite. Engineers lined the camera's 18 detectors along that ring, so the telescope can grab big chunks of sky in a single image instead of stitching them together one narrow pointing at a time.

Roman will go after exoplanets in three main ways. With its camera, it will stare toward the crowded center of the galaxy and watch hundreds of millions of stars for brief brightenings caused by microlensing — when a foreground star and its planets act like a natural magnifying glass for a background star. That method is especially good at finding planets similar to the ones in our own solar system, including worlds as light as Mars, plus "rogue" planets that drift through space without a star. The same data will reveal transits — tiny dips in a star's light when a planet crosses in front of it, zeroing in on tens of thousands of hot, close‑in giants.

The coronagraph will zoom in on only a few nearby stars at a time. By blocking a star's light inside the telescope, astronomers should be able to see much fainter planets beside it. To pull that off, Roman will rely on optics that can subtly change shape to cancel out leftover glare, said Vanessa Bailey, NASA's coronagraph scientist for the telescope. 

"We’re using something called deformable mirrors — exactly what it sounds like. They are mirrors that have thousands of tiny pistons on the back that can move at nanometer, or even picometer, scales to correct the very small polishing errors or optical misalignment errors in the system to block out light better," Bailey told Mashable. "This will be the first time we’re using those in space."

Roman's panoramic view is what makes the observatory powerful for mapping dark matter, the invisible scaffolding that outweighs normal matter and helps hold galaxies together. Astronomers first saw its influence when they realized galaxies and stars were moving too fast to be bound by visible matter alone.

Roman will trace where this hidden material lies by watching how it slightly stretches the shapes of distant galaxies. By tracking those distortions across huge areas of sky, Roman can build a 3D map showing where dark matter clumps and how its clumps have grown over cosmic time.

A NASA team encapsulates the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in the payload fairing at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Aug. 21, 2026. Credit: NASA / Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

Those maps will feed directly into Roman's study of dark energy, the mysterious force that seems to have made the universe's expansion speed up. Instead of slowing down after the Big Bang, galaxies are racing apart faster and faster, as if some invisible pressure is pushing them away from one another.

Three major surveys will drive this science. One will map more than a billion galaxies far from the dusty plane of the Milky Way, combining images and data to build 3D maps of structures. Another will repeatedly image the same region to make movies of the changing sky, catching around 100,000 explosive events — including Type Ia supernovas, star explosions that give off a predictable amount of light, making them handy tools for measuring distances in space.

The third will stare toward the crowded center of the Milky Way. Roman's sharp, infrared vision will let it watch hundreds of millions of stars through intervening dust, searching for the microlensing events.

"What makes me most excited about Roman is the discovery potential. With 2 billion galaxies, we'll have 2,000 objects that are one-in-a-million," said Julie McEnery, senior project scientist. "We'll find new things that go bump in the night."

Before science can begin, Roman will spend about three months traveling out to its orbit. NASA expects to release the first Roman images in January 2027, after early calibration is complete.

Categories: IT General, Technology

The 4 Ethernet cable myths you still believe

How-To Geek - 5 hours 32 min ago

In my experience, there are two kinds of Ethernet cable users: those who buy one cable and use it for the next 10 years without ever thinking whether it's good or bad, and those who overthink the topic of these cables into oblivion, almost min-maxing every purchase and upgrading every so often. There is some in between, but not a lot.

Categories: IT General, Technology

You need to try GNOME 50—it's the most polished and impressive Linux desktop today

How-To Geek - 5 hours 32 min ago

Linux is having a moment, or rather, Microsoft is scaring people away from Windows. If you're making a transition, I highly recommend you consider the open-source GNOME desktop. Far from being a complicated hobbyist project for hardcore Linux nerds, GNOME today is fun, stylized, polished, and privacy-respecting in a way that feels foreign on Windows PCs, Chromebooks, and even MacBooks.

Categories: IT General, Technology

This Android filter silences spam calls without blocking your contacts

How-To Geek - 6 hours 32 min ago

For many of us, we seem to get more spam calls than calls from people in our contacts list. The problem with strict call filters is that they run the risk of blocking the people you do actually want to hear from. Thankfully, that’s not something you need to worry about if you use an Android phone.

Categories: IT General, Technology

I asked Claude and Gemini to build a Docker app—one was smoother, the other smarter

How-To Geek - 6 hours 32 min ago

I've been vibe-coding small apps for a while now, and the biggest problem with them is that they live and die on the machine they were built on. Ideally, you'd want to self-host these apps so they're accessible across all your devices. So, this time, I'm testing Claude vs. Gemini to see which model does a better job of building a Dockerized app and making the self-hosting process as simple as possible.

Categories: IT General, Technology

7 projects you can build with an ESP32-powered Cheap Yellow Display

How-To Geek - 7 hours 2 min ago

The Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) combines an ESP32 microcontroller and small LCD touch display in one affordable package. The integrated screen means that you can build many projects without ever picking up a soldering iron or a breadboard.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Our 17 favorite Lego sets, sourced from actual Lego fans

Mashable - 8 hours 2 min ago

Anyone who calls IKEA "adult Legos" hasn't checked out the Lego catalog lately.

While many of us had our Lego introductions as kids, the coolest Lego sets these days range from architectural marvels to classic gaming consoles to genuine works of art that anyone, kid or adult, can enjoy. In other words, "Legos for adults" are just Legos.

SEE ALSO: First look: Lego reveals a $800 Star Wars Star Destroyer — the longest set Lego has ever constructed

As someone who enjoys a good Lego build and is surrounded by friends, family, and Mashable coworkers who do too, I decided to poll the people around me about the best sets they've built, as well as those that live on their wish lists. Personal favorites of all types get representation in this list, with picks from Mario, Botanicals, Star Wars, Technics, and more finding a place.

Altogether, I rounded up 17 sets, with picks from under $20 all the way up to $850. (Shoutout to my brother for suggesting the three most expensive sets on this list. His Lego expertise is well earned — he owns so many sets my mom texted me ahead of his last birthday, "[He] does not need any more Legos until he has his own garage to store them in.")

Check out our favorite Lego sets for adults, kids, and everyone in between:

Lego Mario Kart It doesn't get better than IRL shell shooting. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

Mario Kart is one of the most iconic IPs out there, and no game of it is complete without absolutely crushing your opponents' hopes and dreams by hitting them with a well-timed shell. So, of course, Lego made sure that these karts could actually shoot from Yoshi's bike (or Donkey Kong, if you buy the additional building kit). In our Pocketworthy series, Mashable's tech editor Timothy Beck Werth said he was just as excited as his niece and nephew when he saw this set's shell shooting abilities.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Super Mario: Mario Kart Yoshi Bike $12.99 at Amazon
$14.99 Save $2   Get Deal SEE ALSO: Review: 'Donkey Kong Bananza' is the Switch 2's first stone cold banger Lego Star Wars BrickHeadz Wouldn't want to meet these guys in a dark alley. Credit: Nick Villescas / Mashable

For any Star Wars fans who don't have $850 to drop on the Millennium Falcon (more on that below), the BrickHeadz line lets you show your love for the space opera at a much more accessible price point. My best friend's husband, Nick, exclusively owns Star Wars Lego, and has curated this collection of BrickHeadz over time. A set of two will run you $19.99, which is an excellent price for decorating your office space (as Nick so expertly demonstrates). In general, Nick appreciates that Lego's catalog is extensive enough that even if you stick to one type or IP from the brand, you still get plenty of options to choose from (and yes, this does guarantee I'll be bugging him for more Star Wars faves in the future).

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego BrickHeadz 'Star Wars' The Mandalorian and the Child $35.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now Lego Botanicals Happy Plants I want to befriend these planters — that's normal, right? Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

These happy plants are part of the popular Lego Botanicals series, a clear favorite of Mashable editors and readers alike, and in this case, another favorite pick from Werth. This Happy Plants set isn't one he owns just yet, but it is one that he's definitely keeping an eye on after spotting them in a Mashable cubicle and at a Lego booth during a toy expo. The mini dracaena and pilea plants are great for Lego beginners (or kids), or anyone else who might not have the bandwidth to put together 500+ pieces (if you fall into that category, beware of the last few picks on this list).

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Botanicals Happy Plants $22.96 at Amazon
  Shop Now Lego Botanicals Petite Sunny Bouquet Flower Set Who doesn't love a Lego Botanicals centerpiece? Credit: Lego

Mashable contributor Lauren Allain bought this small but adorable Botanicals set for her partner's mom — someone who'd never built a set in her life. The verdict? "She loved it," Allain told me. At 373 pieces, it's intricate enough to result in a design that could genuinely work as house decor, while still being beginner-friendly. Plus, it's a nice next step from the Happy Plants if you still want to keep things simple and affordable.

Lego Botanicals Petite Sunny Bouquet Flower Set $23.95 at Amazon
$29.99 Save $6.04   Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Walmart Lego Botanicals Orchid The Lego Botanicals Orchid is a classic for a reason. Credit: Haley Henschel / Mashable

The Lego Orchid was one of the first from the Botanicals line to go properly viral, and it's no surprise as to why — it's gorgeous. Mashable's Haley Henschel uses it as a design piece in her home. It's as at home on a mantle as it is on a bookshelf or even a dining table. And it gets extra points for being an unkillable orchid.

Lego Botanicals Orchid $39.98 at Walmart
$49.99 Save $10.01   Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Best Buy Shop Now at Amazon Lego Botanicals Flower Bouquet Tasteful and non-toxic to pets — what more could you want? Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

Is the classic Botanicals bouquet the perfect beginner set? Take it from Mashable Lead Shopping Reporter Samantha Mangino: "I’d never built Legos until this set, and it was great for a beginner. Not only is it adorable, but ideal if you live with pets and can’t have plants or flowers around. Almost everyone who comes over comments on just how cute this set is." At 756 pieces, it's more of a challenge than the sunny bouquet set, but still plenty accessible.

Lego Botanicals Flower Bouquet $47.95 at Amazon
$59.99 Save $12.04   Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Walmart Lego Botanicals Hanging Golden Pothos The Happy Plants welcome a new member of their family. Credit: Danica Villescas / Mashable

My friend Danica got in on the ground floor with the brand new golden pothos set (it pays to have your birthday near a Lego release date). Though she's yet to actually complete the build, as a veteran builder (you'll see her name more below), she can already tell the pothos is going to be a winner. And to be fair, I get why — it blends into her existing real and Lego plant life beautifully.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Botanicals Hanging Golden Pothos $59.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Lego Icons Retro Radio A Lego radio that can actually play sound? I'm listening (literally). Credit: Lego

I knew I had to ask Danica for her all-time favorites, as she is the proud owner of the first Lego set that made me audibly gasp: the Typewriter (you can actually use the keys — I know). While that set is sadly discontinued, she pointed to this Retro Radio as being another favorite, partially because she likes the vibe, partially because it can actually play audio. The sound brick in the build plays a selection of short audio settings, which is a nifty enough feature on its own for a $100 set. After completing the set, you can also open up the back and put your phone in the radio and play music off your own device — the Lego isn't technically playing it, but it's a cool feature if you want to pretend it is.

Lego Icons Retro Radio $99.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now at Amazon Lego Ideas The Insect Collection Who wouldn't love these bugs? Credit: Lego

When I asked my Mashable colleagues for their favorite sets, Social Good Reporter Chase DiBenedetto responded with a link to this one and a simple message: "I love my bugs." Looking at the color, detail, and poses here, I can see why. With this set, you'll build a blue morpho butterfly, a Hercules beetle, and a Chinese mantis.

Lego Ideas The Insect Collection $71.99 at Walmart
$79.99 Save $8   Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Amazon Lego Ideas A-Frame Cabin This cabin belongs in a cozy bookshelf display. Credit: Danica Villescas / Mashable

Not all Lego builds are created equally — intricate ones with more pieces on the wrong day can feel more frustrating than relaxing. Yet my friend Danica had to recommend this cabin set in addition to the Retro Radio because not only is it extremely charming (look how precious it is on her shelf), she found the build itself fun, despite being an over 2,000-piece set.

Lego Ideas A-Frame Cabin $218.98 at Walmart
  Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Amazon Lego Icons The Lord of the Rings: Balrog Book Nook Kit I'm sorry but all other book nooks have to pack it up, this one wins. Credit: Lego

"If I had 100 bucks to drop on this heavy metal Balrog book nook, I would," is what Mashable UK Editor Shannon Connellan told me in my call for favorite sets (the set goes for £100 in the UK, $129.99 in the US). Opening the link to this set was an experience — taking in the massive Balrog, the tiny Gandalf, the "you shall not pass!", and the staging of this book nook between books now has me thinking if I had $129.99 to drop on this book nook, I would, too.

Lego Icons 'The Lord of the Rings': Balrog Book Nook Kit $107.99 at Amazon
$129.99 Save $22.00   Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Walmart Lego Ideas Twilight The Cullen House If you ask me, this set should be part of the Lego Icons line. Credit: Dylan Haas / Mashable

Sometimes, recreating scenes from a beloved IP is just what the soul needs. Animal Crossing fans may appreciate being able to painstakingly work their way to K.K. Slider's concert in the plaza all over again, LotR fans may need an incredibly epic bookend (as seen above), and Twilight fans may need to see in Lego form where Edward Cullen told Bella, "You better hold on tight, spider monkey."

For former Mashable reporter Dylan Haas, spending time with his wife building this 2,000-plus-piece set reminded him of the importance of taking time to connect with your loved ones. He wrote, "I’m not saying that you should bury your head and ignore what’s going on in the world — actually, I advise heavily against that. But if the state of it all is getting to be overwhelming, maybe I am saying that you should pick up a Lego set and just see what happens."

Lego Ideas 'Twilight' The Cullen House $342.95 at Amazon
  Shop Now at Amazon Lego Icons The Lord of The Rings: The Shire Building Set All your Middle Earth friends are here. Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable

Werth also spotted this set at a recent toy expo, and he says he's been obsessed ever since. At $269.99, this is a Lord of the Rings set priced for more diehard fans (though come to think of it, I'm not sure I've ever met a casual LotR fan). Whether you need another set to tide you over your post Balrog-book-nook-completion blues or simply love the Hobbitses and their home, this 2,017-piece set is sure to do the trick.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Icons 'The Lord of The Rings': The Shire Building Set $269.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now Lego Super Mario The Mighty Bowser Who knew Bowser would be the perfect accent piece for a windowsill? Credit: Lego

Lego wasn't playing when it named this set the Mighty Bowser. For one, look at him. For two, it's 2,807 pieces, meaning it's built (or rather ready-to-be-built) for the fans who spent a good chunk of their childhood grinding Mario on the N64. Unsurprisingly, I sourced this selection from my friend Mitch, who is 100 percent one of those fans. When I asked him why this set stood out, he cited nostalgia, and to me, there is something beautiful about nostalgia taking the form of a giant, Lego Koopa king.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego 'Super Mario' The Mighty Bowser $269.99 at Walmart
  Shop Now Lego Ideas The Globe Three-month old kitten for scale. Credit: Bethany Allard / Mashable

This retired Ideas set has a "hard to find" tag on the Lego website, so naturally, it's in my family's dining room (thanks to my brother). Like an actual globe, it spins (and surprisingly doesn't feel like it's ultra-fragile, despite being made entirely of Lego). The major catch here, besides the price, is that it's currently only available from third-party sellers at Walmart and Amazon.

Lego Ideas The Globe $306.70 at Walmart
  Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Amazon Lego Technic McLaren P1 The Lego Technic line is the perfect intersection for car enthusiasts and people who want to try out non-traditional Lego bricks. Credit: Lego

Speaking of splurges, it's time to get into my brother's two picks. He first suggested the larger-scale items from Technic's line, saying they are "pretty cool because [they] step away from the traditional brick." He built the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, which is unfortunately now a retired product (though you can hunt around on resale sites if you're so inclined). If you're not too picky about make and model, this McLaren P1 is a worthy alternative still in stock.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Technic McLaren P1 $449.99 at Lego
  Shop Now Lego 'Star Wars' Millennium Falcon My family did in fact eat meals around this. Credit: Thomas Allard / Mashable

An $850 Lego set is not for the casual Lego fan, which is exactly why it's my brother's pride and joy (to be fair, he bought it at its original price of $799 — a real bargain). I'm 99 percent sure I've never seen my brother happier than when he was building this behemoth. For a long time, it lived near the entrance to my family's home (shortly after its initial residence on the kitchen table), and it was the conversation piece of every single person who visited. I've watched many a grown man drop his jaw at its presence. And they better — it is not only by far the most expensive set on this list, but one of the most expensive sets Lego has ever produced.

The interior of the ship is actually insane. Credit: Thomas Allard / Mashable

When I asked my brother if he thinks this set is worth $850, he texted back, "F-ck no! But it does look cool." Would he buy it all over again? "Yeah probably." And honestly, fair. This set is beyond intricate, with its whopping 7,541 pieces allowing you not just to build the exterior structure of the iconic ship, but also some interior rooms, populated with characters from the original trilogy and recent sequels.

Lego 'Star Wars' Millennium Falcon $815 at Walmart
  Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Amazon
Categories: IT General, Technology

The 6 best power stations for camping keep you both online and off-grid

Mashable - 8 hours 2 min ago

Your ideal portable power station for camping depends on your overall power needs, how long you’ll be in the great outdoors, and whether you’ll be utilizing solar power to recharge. And after months of testing some of the top models, I'm finally ready to pick the best portable power station for camping in 2026.

Categories: IT General, Technology
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