Month: January 2017

You might remember the story of Abul Bajandar, the Bangladeshi man who gained a measure of internet notoriety last year for his curious medical affliction. Since age 10, Bajandar has suffered from epidermodysplasia verruciformis, an ultra-rare skin disease characterized by extreme sensitivity to the human papillomavirus (HPV), which prompted bark-like warts to practically swallow his hands.

Homeopathy and natural cures didn’t work; neither did trying to remove them himself. They’d only grow back stronger and larger.

Fortunately, Bajandar’s story looks to have a happy ending. According to The Washington Post, physicians at Dhaka Medical College Hospital have spent the past year performing 16 separate surgeries in an effort to give Bajandar his hands back. They’ve succeeded.

Although he’s still recovering, Bajandar now has use of his hands, making him the first person to potentially be cured of EV. (While there is currently no long-term treatment to prevent the growths from returning, surgical excision seems to be effective.) Eating, writing, holding his daughter, and other fine motor skills are now possible. Previously, Bajandar was in so much pain that he was unable to work or care for his basic personal needs.

Doctors say Bajandar still has a few procedures left to go, mainly to improve his cosmetic appearance. While it’s possible the warts may grow back at some point, Bajandar appears to no longer have a need for his “tree man” label.  

[h/t Washington Post]

If Hayao Miyazaki ever decides to retire for good, his son will be around to carry on his legacy. As io9 reports, Gorō Miyazaki’s animated show Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter will soon be available to stream in the U.S.

Co-produced by Studio Ghibli with Hayao’s son in the director’s chair, the critically acclaimed series was adapted from a novel by Astrid Lindgren, who created Pippi Longstocking. It follows Ronja, the daughter of a notorious robber, as she befriends a boy from a rival tribe. After premiering on Japanese television in 2014, the show is now set to make its American debut through Amazon Prime Video on January 27.

Gorō Miyazaki has previously directed two Studio Ghibli projects: Tales from Earthsea in 2006 and From Up on Poppy Hill in 2011. Viewers may recognize the voice of someone else who has collaborated with the studio in the past: Gillian Anderson, who voiced the wolf goddess Moro in the American dub of Princess Mononoke (1997), will be using her vocal talents as the show’s narrator.

Amazon Prime members will have access to all 26 episodes of Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter when the show is released later this month. If that feels like a while to wait, the trailer below should tide you over until then.

[h/t io9]

Is there a final row in an Excel spreadsheet? Just like finding out how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop, there is only one way to find out (OK, fine you can Google it, but that spoils the fun). Tenacious internet pioneer Hunter Hobbs sought to find out how long it took to reach the bottom by keeping a steady hand on the down arrow key.

Unlike the cheating owl from the Tootsie Pop commercial, Hobbs adhered to some strict rules: No taking breaks, no using the control key, and no biting into lollipops. All he could do was sit, keep his finger on the key, and wait. With the help of some small distractions (like a book, a pizza, and a paddle ball), Hobbs finally made it to the end—after nine and a half hours. Thanks to his valiant efforts, we now know how long it takes to get to row 1,048,576, so we never have to do it ourselves.

[h/t SPLOID]

For anyone looking to scratch that retro gaming itch, the NES Classic is the perfect solution. Well, almost. Nintendo may have included 30 classic games pre-installed on the system, like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Tecmo Bowl, but once you blow through those, there’s no way to get more titles. The NES Classic doesn’t connect to the internet or Nintendo’s eShop, so the current roster of games is all you’ll get until the inevitable follow-up that the company is sure to produce.

But what if you just need to play some Battletoads or Contra right now? As usual, there’s a hack for that. Ars Technica is reporting that hackers have found a way to add more titles to the existing NES Classic library, including favorites like Darkwing Duck, Bucky O’Hare, and the rest of the Mega Man collection (the NES Classic only includes Mega Man 2).

There’s a Reddit thread with a set of directions detailing how the hacker, named MadMonkey, accomplished this. The process involves hooking your NES Classic to a computer through the micro-USB cable, then uploading NES ROMs from the computer to the NES Classic.

A hack like this, in theory, can add any NES game you can find to your Classic—although a video found by The Verge claims that some people have run into trouble after uploading more than 80 games. Just know that all of these hacks involve a fair amount of computer savvy, as a wrong move can easily ruin your Classic device. Plus, there’s also no legal way to do any of this, since downloading a ROM is considered pirating.

If you don’t want to turn your NES Classic into an expensive paperweight, you can always legally download older titles from Nintendo’s paid Virtual Console service, provided you have a Wii U or Nintendo 3DS.

[h/t Ars Technica]

Though her filmography consists of more than 80 credits, the late Debbie Reynolds is best known for her role as aspiring actress Kathy Selden, the singing-and-dancing love interest of movie star Don Lockwood (played by Gene Kelly) in Stanley Donen’s classic musical, Singin’ in the Rain. To celebrate the life of the iconic actress, who passed away on December 28, Entertainment Weekly reports that the film will return to theaters across the country for a special two-day engagement beginning this weekend.

The Oscar-nominated film, which turns 65 this year, will screen as part of Fathom and Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series. The film will screen on Sunday, January 15 and Wednesday, January 18 and will include a brief introduction from TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

Over the next year, the series will bring a host of classic films—including North by Northwest, Smokey and the Bandit, The Godfather, E.T., and The Princess Bride—back into cinemas. But the year’s lineup will kick off with Singin’ in the Rain, of which Reynolds once wrote: “Singin’ in the Rain and childbirth were the hardest things I ever had to do in my life.”

[h/t: Entertainment Weekly]