The Care and Feeding of Nerds: This Week in Geekdom

Oh, hey guys. It's that time again, isn't it? Studying is creating what seems to be even more distortions in the space-time continuum than I'd normally expect from this time of year. It's going to be a very interesting few months to say the least. It was a very busy few days though, due in no small part to the annual Consumer Electonics Show. In case you missed out on CES, here's a round-up of some of the highlights. Add to all that goodness, these fun highlights from This Week in Geekdom!

Books

Unlike George R.R. Martin, Outlander author Diana Gabaldon adheres to her deadlines.

Games

Final Fantasy IX will be available on Steam within the next few months and here's what you can expect.

Did Jurassic World spark your desire to live in harmony with dinosaurs? You may want to check out ARK: Survival Evolved.

Movies/TV

J.J. Abrams has been a very busy man. Check out the trailer for his latest project: 11.22.63, a time-travel series for Hulu based on a Stephen King novel of the same name.

Despite working the publicity circuit for The Force Awakens and 11.22.63, Mr Abrams was not too busy to stop and address complaints that the latest installation of the Star Wars franchise bears too strong a resemblance to its founding chapter.

Back in December, the Huffington Post published a lengthy list of 'plot holes' in The Force Awakens. Here is a very thorough point-by-point rebuttal.

Game of Thrones will return to HBO on April 24th.

While we're in an HBO state of mind, the network has given the official green light to the development of a Deadwood movie.

Science/Technology

Oculus Rift officially hit the open consumer market this week as it opened itself up for pre-orders. The catch: a set will cost you an eye-popping $599 USD. Perhaps this is where Fortune got its projections of the virtual reality market being worth $5.1 billion USD this year alone.

NVIDIA wants in on the autonomous car game.

Thanks to the efforts of many researchers and one very, very specialized telescope, we may get a chance to see the event horizon of the black hole at the center of our galaxy by 2017.

Experts believe it will look something like this.

Speaking of black holes, NASA's Chandra telescope is presenting astrophysicists with new data derived from observations of this...ehm...interesting behavior from the Whirlpool galaxy.

Aside from observing black holes, NASA is also occupied developing this, the successor to the Hubble telescope.

It's official: the periodic table of elements has four new members.

If you weigh 220 lbs (99.79 kg) or less then Ehang may have a very interesting way for you to get to school or work.

Desert sand is so efficient at capturing and retaining heat that researchers at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology want to develop ways to turn it into a thermal energy storage medium.

Acoustics experts at Australia's RMIT University may revolutionize the way that stem cell treatments are delivered to patients by combining two different sound waves.

The artificial pancreas is two clinical trials away from being a consumable reality.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

What do you get when a Disney storyboard artist combines the aesthetic of Calvin & Hobbes with The Force Awakens? These awesome cartoons, that's what.

It's no secret that we at the Care and Feeding of Nerds love us some excellent infographics and here's an excellent series depicting the fact that half of the Earth's population lives on 1% of its land mass.

And here's a fun infographic breaking out all of the character deaths in Shakespeare's oeuvre.

Amateur astronomer Michael Sidonio thought he was taking pictures of galaxy NGC 253 and ended up discovering a galaxy of his own.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

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