For the tech-head beer-drinker on your gift list (that’s me!) comes the Opena Case. It’s $40. And it’s Australian.

The video’s a little self-promotional, but it’s still pretty cool to see the hugeness of the Wuskwatim Generating Station as it’s being assembled in northern Manitoba.

The $1.3 billion dam will generate 200 MW when it’s complete, sometime next year.

Manitoba Hydro also has a convenient “How To Build A Generating Station” tour, in case you’ve got $1.3 billion of your own money burning a hole in your pocket.

And, I found this video, taking a look at some of the earlier stages of construction, if you’d like to see some of the exterior dam works.

Manitoba Hydro, for what it’s worth, provides my power, although I pay them for the privilege.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a couple of educational videos up on YouTube called “Mars In A Minute” that teach you little tidbits about the Red Planet. There’s the one above, showing you how to get there, and sort of explaining why there’s a flurry of Mars launches right now, but there won’t be next year. There’s also another, asking is it really red?

I hope they do more — they’re just the kind of videos that are accessible and not condescending to kids in order to get them excited about space exploration.

Apparently, this is a real product, due to be launched in 2012. Judging from the awful facial expressions of cashiers struggling to replace rolls of thermal paper into their tills, this is a product that will be used through one, maybe two rolls, and then never used again.

Because, dear God, this is an aggravating product.

Are there still even CEOs so out-of-touch that they get their emails printed off and read to them? I can’t imagine anything less useful than a receipt-paper printout of day-old e-phemera like Twitter updates and Foursquare check-ins.

That little dude is going to look CREEEEEEEPY, too, when the red/pink smear that indicates an almost-done roll starts smearing down his face.

Despite this ad’s upbeat narrator, I sincerely doubt that my “Forever Lazy” will be the talk of my next tailgate — at least, not in a positive way, as they imply.

This is really interesting! Although the paper cutouts just look like really big versions of those snowflakes you used to make in Grade 3, when they’re spun ’round on a bicycle wheel, they turn into animations.

I believe that the effect is only possible through film, which makes it kind of extra-interesting. If you see this in real-life, the wheels would just blur around and around, but when the revolutions of the bike wheel are synchronized just so with the shutter speed of the camera, you get a simple animation effect.

Love it.

(By Katy Beveridge, via Boing Boing)

Amy found these! I had heard of them all before, but the animation and narration are excellently fun.

I’m neither a doctor nor a dyslexic, so can’t vouch for the claims in this video, but it strikes me as something that would work, based on my casual knowledge of the condition. Very interesting approach to it, that’s for sure — even if the font does look a little like Chiller.

Find out more at StudioStudio.

(Thanks, Matt!)

I love these pencils, hand-stamped with catch phrases from The Big Lebowski. But I love even more that there are multiple sets of pop-culture pencils at this Etsy store — including classic rap, The Goonies, mostly dead wrestlers and mid-century designers.

And I love ever MORE that you can order custom sets as well!

There’s a six-part show coming in February, but for now, feast your eyes on this trailer, and the start of a web promotional series.

Go to danger5.tv for more

If you’re a little taken aback by the sheer consumer frenzy that is Christmas shopping, just think about all the “impossible” or “too expensive” things that you could do with that money — a total of about $45 billion this year — instead.

Thankfully, the people at Visual.ly have done all the thinking for you. Full infographic after the jump.

It’s a stunningly simple idea — obvious when you’ve seen it. And, in a variety of colours, it’ll set you back €15, plus shipping. That’s a mite too high for something that it readily available in its standard, fingertip burning form at Dollaramas around the country.

I wonder if you could just heat up a soldering iron and make your own, or something?

Small Business Saturday is just one of the backlashes against the Black Friday consumerist madness. Cyber Monday has grown into a black day all its own, and I’m sure the small business owners of the world hope that Saturday does, too.

I also saw a handmade/local crafts “day” being planned, but I can’t remember what it was called, which makes it impossible to Google. (Here’s a similar pledge.)

All of these, of course, share the conceit that it’s not the consumerism that’s the problem, it’s that you’re aiming your consumerist impulses in the wrong place.

The granddaddy of all of them, of course, is Buy Nothing Day.

Having just had two great experiences with local, downtown shops in the past week, and having had excellent luck last year having a local artisan custom-craft me a gift, you can tell I’m primed to support these causes.

And yet — I was at Wal-Mart yesterday. And I’ve already ordered gifts this year from Amazon.

So don’t feel bad if you did, too. But the Christmas season is such a spend-a-thon, it’s an excellent time, no matter what the prompt, to take a step back, a deep breath, and examine exactly where all that hard-earned cash of yours is going.

Hmmm, actually, that’s an interesting idea: Cash-only Christmas. Tackle the credit crisis and force local shopping all in one? LOVE IT.

(Of course, I’m not the first to think of it, but maybe I can be the one to make it a thing this year.)

Having now read through this recipe on two sites (Our Best Bites and Blondie’s) I am suddenly certain that making my own caramels is the natural next step for curing my candy addiction. Once I actually put some of my own labour into them, rather than just fulling a bag at 5 cents apiece at the local 7-11, I will value them more, I will avoid popping them mindlessly into my mouth. And, of course, if I suddenly have a huge container of home-made caramels in my house, that’s just beside the point.

All you need is an all-silver coin (so, you’re looking for an older-model quarter), a hammer, to pound the edges until they flatten, and a drill or dremel to hollow out the centre.

Apparently, this used to be all the rage.

Fuller details at A Law Student’s Journey.