The other day, CrunchGear wrote up a useful, in-depth analysis of the Pirates vs Ninjas debate. They concluded the latter, but I think they forgot about the fact that Pirates are constantly drunk, so don't really feel any pain.

However, if a Ninja needed to leave you a note (saying you were 'next' or reminding you to buy some milk, perhaps), this is how he (or she) would do it. They'd sneak into your kitchen in the dead of night, silencing your dog with a poison dart, and then use one of these throwing star magnets to affix the note (written in blood, obviously) to the fridge door, or any other convenient metal surface.

Sadly the site that sells these BRILLIANT items is out of stock until January. We've known about these for a couple of weeks, but didn't want to get your hopes up about a sneaky Christmas present before now. Still, if you fancy pre-ordering for when they're restocked, then they cost just £12.80, plus shipping.

Epaulet (via OhGizmo!)

Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for a gaming-obsessed relative? Well, you're probably too late. Even if you weren't, these joystick coathooks aren't available and don't have a price attached. That said, with a bit of superglue or varnish, I'm sure you could do a similar thing with real joysticks. Head down to your local cash-converters and grab some old ones. Do it now.

(via CrunchGear)

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If you want to be energy efficient, but - DAMN! - you just can't get enough of the old-fashioned incandescent bulb's style, then you just ran out of excuses. General Electric has crammed a compact-fluorescent tube into a normally-shaped incandescent bulb.

It means that you get all the environmental and power-saving benefits of the CFL, with none of the "But it looks so freaky!" drawbacks. Seriously though, is there anyone out there who's so wedded to the shape of the incandescent that they've put off upgrading for this reason? If that's you, then explain yourself in the comments, you strange person.

Video explaining the new bulb (via CrunchGear)

You don't really need me to explain this to you and, in fact, if you didn't draw breath the moment you saw these bookshelf-come-bedside lights then I suggest you move on to another post on the page.

These are the Lili Lites and they are not a concept. They are available to buy and buy now. They cost 99.00€ each plus postage - ouch - but they are both beautiful and ingenious.

If you spend most of your spare time on the internet discussing the merits of Battlestar Galactica season one and then posting lengthy lists of 'What Went Wrong' regarding seasons two and three of the space-race epic, here is THE Christmas gift FOR YOU.

A "How To Spot A Cylon" poster, reproduced in glorious black and yellow. Here it is, uploaded for your entertainment in the largest possible format we could find on all of the internet. You can read most of the words if you click on it, making buying it a bit of a pointless activity, really, as the joke wears off before you're even halfway through.

If you want an old fashioned hard copy to watch fade and deteriorate over the coming years until you decide to replace it with a nice watercolour of a ship to make the flat look like it's lived in by an adult, the poster's available on Amazon (.com, sadly) for $19.

(Via Botropolis)

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This is the rather beautiful iPhone coffee table. Three facts that might surprise you - firstly, it's made entirely out of cardboard. No poncy wood here. Secondly, you can swap the Apps around, and when you pull one out of its space, it acts nicely as a coaster. Last of all, there's unfortunately no tutorial to build your own. That's a shame. It'd fit in brilliantly on Thingiverse.

iLounge (via Bornrich)

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A reader who calls himself "Stretchy" has just alerted us to this awesome bit of history-making eBay activity - Alton Towers is flogging off the front car of its long-running Corkscrew rollercoaster.

The description over at Alton Towers' site says you're getting "The most unique Christmas present EVER!" if, by some incredible longshot, you happen to have a friend or family member who's just asked for a bit of a closed rollercoaster as one of their Christmas presents this year.

Delivery's included in the price (currently a reasonable-sounding £1750, although, having never purchased a rollercoaster car before, that might be a rip-off) although you'll have to spend the same again on wrapping paper if you're planning on giving it to someone as a present.

All of the money raised from the sale is going to charity, mind, so you're not allowed to be mean about it. Don't even raise a cynical eyebrow.

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Okay, let's be honest here. Digital photo frames are a load of rubbish. They sit there consuming piles of energy, 24/7, and don't actually look that brilliant. However, the great British public seems dead-set on buying them by the bucketload, and Jessops are capitalising on this by offering two of them for the budget price of just fifty sheets - that's presents for two aunts knocked out in one fell swoop!

The frames in question cost £30 normally, measure 3.5" corner-to-corner, and come with a slideshow facility, memory card slot, and functions to control colour, brightness and zoom. They also connect up to your PC so you can change the pictures on it with the greatest of ease. Sounds awful to you - but sounds brilliant to your mum.

Jessops

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The designer calls this chair "Fully Loaded", and says it's a 'unique dichotomy of comfort and demise'. It's made of 388 shotgun shells, already fired, sadly. You can pick from black, green, blue, red and copper shells, and the brass is covered with a coat of varnish to prevent tarnishing.

The chair is currently being built to order. No word how much it costs, but I suspect we're not talking tens of pounds here - more like hundreds.

Rehhab (via Gearfuse)

Related chairs: Grass Armchair | Star Trek Command Chair | Torpedo Chair

We've all been there. Sat, just after midnight at your PC, shivering because the heating's not on. You wrap a blanket around you, but you know that at some point you'll need to turn the heating on, because you're nowhere near done with your work for the evening.

What you need is something that will save you getting up, because getting up is cold. You need the Ecobee - a Wi-Fi thermostat. It syncs with a web server, so you can control your heating from afar - turn it on before you leave work, for example. It could even adjust the heating depending on what the weather conditions are like outside - if it knows there's a cold snap coming, for example.

If you invested heavily in the cassette format in the 80s and 90s, then you're probably kicking yourself now that half of your music collection is no longer playable due to the ravages of time and magnetic degradation. That and the fact you left them in the sun during the summer of 1998 and now they stick together a bit.

Well, Dutch designer Patrick Schuur has the solution. It's a cupboard made of cassettes. Nine-hundred and eighteen of them to be precise. Assuming each is a C90, that means there's 57 days' worth of music on his cupboard. No word on whether that includes mixtapes featuring the Lighthouse Family, M-People and Gabrielle.

Creative Barn (via Core77)

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Okay, so this isn't the most pleasant piece of art in the world, but it's sorta cool. It's a light-up hanging noose. Just the thing to go with your Joy Division albums. Odds are that it wouldn't support the weight of a human, but it might electrocute you in the process, if you're inclined to give it a try.

I suspect the designer, Marie Thurnauer, is probably making a bad pun about "dark humour" in the concept of this piece. Talking of bad jokes, the piece costs €4750 (£3,770ish). There's not many people farting out that kind of money at the moment, so I hope, for her sake, that the designer has a day job too...

Petites Productions (via SlipperyBrick)

It's concept design eco-lamp heaven. So long as the Krank lamp works a little better than the Gary's look at the wind-up torch, then it's a good bit of work from Mr Efrain E. Velez.

Of course, the danger is that you rip off the head of the lamp from irritated excess kranking every five minutes between reading three pages of your book before the light fades. However, the magnet and copper coil internal mechanism is promised to produce between 40-60 minutes of light with "just a few kranks".

I can imagine the Krank being a total pain in the arse but I can also imagine coming round to the idea pretty quickly as the sea-levels approach my doormat.

Efrain E. Velez (via Yanko Design)

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The Brionvega Radiofonografo RR126 was one of the most beautiful pieces of design of the sixties. It contained a radio, amp, dial controls and a phonograph. This is the RR226, which adds a CD and DVD player to the mix, but looks no less gorgeous. The speakers flip over the top, where the record player is, if you'd prefer them to.

There's no price attached to the system yet, though I suspect it's going to be rather on the high side. Nor is there any sign of a release date - at the moment Brionvega is just showing it off around design shows. Still, what a delightful piece of art, eh?

Brionvega (via BornRich)

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On first site, the Martyr Lamp is a really good bit of design. There's something wonderfully human about this cute little man with a lightbulb for a head giving you that safe, comforting nighttime hue.

However, look a little closer, think a little harder and it all gets rather disturbing.

Assuming you've still got some cash left after forking out on all that home cinema gear, consider installing it on Spectral's latest furnishing masterpiece rather than plonking it on some home-assembly tat from MFI.

Spectral GB's Catena cabinets offer maximum support for flat screen TVs on a pivoting T-mount, while all the other hi-fi components can be stored alongside. There's plenty of room for DVDs, CDs, Blu-rays, as well.

I really don't like digital photo frames. In fact, as a rule I try never to have them on Tech Digest because I think they're one of the worst inventions ever and come the revolution, their creator will be the first up against the wall.

But, today Kodak has put me in a quandary. They've just announced the first ever wireless OLED digital photo frame for release before Christmas. See, I hate photo frames but I love OLEDs.

In the above video Dan is awed by a set of *massive* speakers from Swan. One is the size of a wardrobe. You can only buy them as a set, and each one its own costs in the region of £20k, but they make poor Dan look like a dwarf. Imagine the volume you'd get out of those... I'm off to have a cold shower.

Swan speaker

For more nutritious IFA2008 goodness, chow down here.

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Turns out that Brits are the biggest consumers of digital photo frames in the world - god knows why. They're expensive and not very useful. However, upping the usefulness of these devices is the Compositor Media Streamer. It lets you stream all kinds of content - photos, videos, even movies to a bunch of frames around your house. Susi from our sister site ShinyShiny has had a look:

For more IFA coverage click here.

(via ShinyShiny)

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I can't quite make up my mind whether a giant tabletop clock is the best idea ever or just a terrible way to ensure you can never relax? A lull in conversation around the Time Table would last forever and you could measure just how long as both you and your awkward companion watch the uncomfortable minutes tick by. Thank God it doesn't do seconds.