The Care and Feeding of Nerds: Dr. Who

Showing posts with label Dr. Who. Show all posts

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Hi everyone. Woo boy. We're all still a bit worn out from PAX East 2016, but there's plenty of content to help push us through that post-con fatigue. No worries, you'll get all the goodness from PAX in the very near future! In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Comics

DC has fired Shelly Bond, executive editor of Vertigo, and announces a not-yet-detailed 'restructuring of the label.

Games

Blizzard comes clean about their cancelled successor to World of Warcraft.

Video games are estimated to garner nearly $100 billion USD this year.

Meet Project Nova, the first-person shooter by CCP that's trying to establish a solid foundation for itself. Oh, and, by the way, it's an Eve game.

Sony hasn't come right out and said as much, but it has dropped some strong hints that the PS4 may be the last console it ever produces.

The Xbox 360 received its official death notice from Microsoft this past Thursday.

Kerbal Space Program gets 'Turbo Charged' in the first large-scale update since the game's release.

Red Dead 2 seems as though it is a very, very real (eventually playable) possibility.

Movies/TV

Somewhere on this planet there exists 39 episodes of a Star Wars-based animated series that we may never get to see.

The showrunners have confirmed that they are approaching the end of the narrative for Game of Thrones.

The latest companion for Doctor Who has been revealed.

Science/Technology

Is it possible that the entirety of the known and unknown universe is actually just an elaborate computer simulation? Neil deGrasse Tyson and some of the other brightest minds in science concede that there's a chance this could be the case.

On a similar note: is it possible for scientists to prove that a multiverse exists?

The potential physical states of water are some of the best known in science, but, given the results of this study in the latest edition of Physical Review Letters, there may be a whole lot more to the molecule than previously believed.

While we're on the subject of water and the amazing things that we're just discovering it can do, researchers at Kyoto University have managed to isolate a dimer of the substance using a technique called molecular surgery.

Image credit

A robot monk? China's Longquan Temple now counts a mechanical member among its monastical ranks.

Vulcanologists are adopting a new type of statistical analysis in their studies, one typically employed by economists.

Need a few moments of beauty? NASA has you covered with these videos of the Aurora Borealis as seen from space.

Obi-Wan may have believed them to be an elegant weapon, but lightsabers would actually be far more dangerous in real life than their cinematic depiction would have you believe them to be.

Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are producing AI Squared: an AI protocol capable of stopping cyberattacks.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy Sunday everyone and belated holiday wishes to those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday. If this was a long weekend for you, hopefully it has been filled with gaming and nomnoms and goodness. It's been a pretty awesome, if already busy, kickoff to The Holiday Season and we're hoping to get in at least a little rest before the mistletoe mania gets cranked up to eleven. In that spirit, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Movies/TV

We are were weeks away from the release of Episode VII and we now know both the names of some of the new planets that will be appearing in the film as well as its rating.

Science/Technology

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity as narrated by David Tennant

Begun the privately-funded space wars have.

2016 is already shaping up to be an amazing year for autonomous cars. Prepare yourself for Formula E: an all-electric autonomous racing circuit.

It may or may not, however, be a comparably excellent year for Apple. The technology mega-giant has announced that it will be making a massive change to its headphones that may not go over well with the consuming public.

For a mere $5 USD you can have the one of the smallest computers made to date.

The science behind the magic of aging spirits in wooden barrels.

China will be constructing its own super-massive particle collider. If the project is completed per the released specifications, it will be the largest collider in the world.

General Awesomeness

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and XKCD creator/former NASA physicist Randall Monroe have a little chat with one another and it is incredible that the universe was not immediately unmade given that raw quantity of awesome.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy weekend everyone and sweet dreams to everyone who's finishing Extra Life 2015. This year's gaming marathon has raised nearly $6.4 million USD and counting! So many kudos to everyone who participated this year, now go get some much-deserved rest. And rest is definitely needed, as this upcoming week is chock-full of much-anticipated releases. For those of you still conscious, let's get down to the week in geekdom.

Comics

Did Snoopy ruin the Peanuts?

Games

Need a little post-apocalyptic pick-me-up to get you through to the release of Fallout 4? You got it.

Movies/TV

It's official: Star Trek is coming back to the small screen in January of 2017. Caveat: everything subsequent to the pilot episode may be tough to come by.

We're approaching the t-minus one month mark in the countdown to Episode VII. If a month is still too much to bear, Den of Geek has put together this massive compilation of all the posters, trailers, and assorted images that have been released to the public.

Every James Bond gadget ever.

Peter Capaldi is NOT happy about the way that the current incarnation of Doctor Who has played out on the BBC.

In happier BBC news, the network has greenlit an 8-part series based on Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials.

Oh hi there World of Warcraft trailer

Science/Technology

A team of researchers comprised of participants from UC San Francisco, the University of Michigan, and Washington University at St. Louis have identified a compound that, when applied as an eye drop, may clear up cataracts in humans. Their findings can be found in the latest edition of Science.

That same edition of Science also contains this research from the University of Toronto that may upend everything we thought we knew about how blood is made and maintained in the human body.

There are myriad examples in film and, increasingly, in real life wherein humans show more than a bit of disdain for AI programmed to be 'friendly' or otherwise helpful. As this sort of technology becomes more integrated into our lives, how will our behavior impact the way we relate to other humans?

NASA's JPL and the University of Texas at Austin have been working together to use satellites in order to observe patterns in the Earth's ocean currents. What they've found so far does not bode well in terms of the potential impacts of climate change.

This past Wednesday marked the exact centennial of Albert Einstein's historic, gravity-redefining lectures at the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Here's the story of how none of this would likely have come to pass were it not for the school of thought/obsession with a fictional planet.

How is it that supermassive black holes are capable of of flaring? Thanks to NASA's Explorer mission Swift and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, we may be closer than ever to answering that question.

Image credit: NASA

Here is the brief, spirally history of the Strypi-type rocket.

We've been following the development of a potential EM drive as best we can and, allegedly, there have been a few new details released into the interwebs concerning this physics-defying device.

Happy 15th birthday to the International Space Station!

If you think the Hubble is the be-all and end-all of telescopic prowess in the universe, check out what gravity itself is capable of.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

These two 17-year-olds, communicating only through Facebook and Gchat, may have just paved the way for interstellar travel.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

November what? Seriously? Sheesh. It's been kind of a hectic week over here at the Care and Feeding of Nerds but, fear not, for there are plenty of posts headed your way in the not-so-distant future. In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Games

2015 has not been very good to Nintendo, and the immediate future doesn't seem to contain any respite for the beleaguered game maker. On Thursday Nintendo announced that its first mobile game would be delayed until March of 2016, preventing them from capturing any holiday season sales.

Movies/TV

Heads up Whovians, a very familiar not-so-canine K9 companion will be getting the big screen treatment in 2017.

Jar Jar Binks: possibly the single most loathed character in the Star Wars universe. But what if we've been massively misjudging this Gungan all along?

Science/Technology

How do you go about providing internet service to remote areas? Well, if you're Google, you develop these stratosphere-bound balloons and beam it in.

The latest edition of Nature includes the surprising data collected by the Rosetta spacecraft as it passed the comet 67P. The surprise was the quantity of molecular oxygen present around the comet, as this may indicate that the universe may not have been formed with a Big Bang after all.

On Tuesday the FDA approved the use of a genetically altered herpesvirus for the treatment of the skin cancer melanoma, paving the way for the use of similar virus-based treatments in the future.

It's not often we get a bit of good news on the climate change front, but this new study from NASA indicates that the ice and snow related mass gains on the Antarctic Ice Sheet are actually greater than the sum of the losses sustained on said Sheet due to melting.

Fresh out of the Tokyo Motor Show is this honest-to-goodness transforming car.

Sorry for the short round-up this week guys, but there's more headed your way (I promise!). As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

It's September? Seriously? Whew. It's entirely possible that I'll just never catch up with this year. We're in the process of gearing up for our last convention of 2015: the Boston Festival of Indie Games, which promises to be bigger and better than ever before. It's one of our favorite days of gaming and we'll be giddily bringing you all the highlights live from the campus of MIT via our social media pages. As always, we'll also bring you a full recap of all the fun in the week or so following the convention. In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Comics

We're going to get a brand-new incarnation of the Hulk this coming December (it'll be a big first for Marvel!). Here's a sneak peek of what you can expect.

Movies/TV

The season premiere for the fourth season of Arrow is almost exactly a month away, but producers are taking pity on patient fans of the show by releasing images of John Diggles' new costume.

The International Federation of Film Critics agree with our collective assessment of Mad Max: Fury Road.

That collective excited gasp you may have heard this past Wednesday likely stemmed from fans of Doctor Who as they learned that River Song will be making an appearance in this year's Christmas Special.

Marvel has made it clear to Chris Evans that they would like for him to continue playing Captain America into Phase Three. Chris Evans would like Marvel to know that he's more than ok with that.

We will definitely see Captain America in the upcoming film Civil War, but we won't be seeing any of Mark Ruffalo's the Hulk.

Science/Technology

It sounds like something a Bond villain would unleash upon the seas: a poison-injecting submarine. Turns out this fiendish-sounding vehicle is not only real, but is a mechanical ally to coral reefs.

What would happen if we were to spontaneously 'grow' a fourth spatial dimension?

We've already talked a bit about Japan's preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games (holy artificial meteor shower Batman!). Now we have a few more details concerning these efforts. The Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency is working to create a speedy and accurate translator app that will assist medical crews if they have to attend to any emergencies during the Games.

Who knew light was so squeeze-able? The latest edition of Nature includes this research from St. John's College at the University of Cambridge that indicates individual particles of light can be 'squeezed', or brought to the lowest possible level of active electromagnetic activity.

'Heart in a Box', this device that keeps donated hearts alive and beating after they've been removed from their donor, but before they can be transplanted into a new patient, may just revolutionize organ transplantation as we know it.

At first glance, these pieces seem like they may just be computer-simulated images. They are, however, completely real works made entirely of glass. Bonus: they were 3D printed in glass using hybrid printing/glass blowing technology developed by researchers at Harvard and MIT.

Not a screensaver; an actual work of glass

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Yes, we are eventually going to get a feature film starring Boba Fett, but a fan may already deliver that bounty hunter fix you're after with this film trailer.

The Nerdist talks bluntly with Sir Patrick Stewart in this excellent podcast.

It's one of the most enduring questions in sci-fi (or cinema for that matter): why are Imperial Stormtroopers just so terrible at firing their blasters? Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame feels he may have an answer for us.

Behold this faithfully recreated Soviet-era arcade.

It took only a handful of seconds for a certain round orange robot to capture the hearts of Star Wars fans around the world. Want to know more about BB-8? Here come the details.

Not enough adorable droid for you? Here's the commercial for the way in which you can own your own BB-8.

The world's tallest arcade game will make you, the player, feel positively child-like.

As always, best wishes for an amazing week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy weekend everyone and best wishes for a happy remainder of your con to all those attending Celebration right now. I'm not jealous at all...ok, who am I kidding? I so wish I could be in Anaheim right now. Sigh. Since we can't be in California right now, let's distract ourselves with Steam key giveaways and This Week in Geekdom!

Comics

Marvel executive editor Mike Marts has left the powerhouse label to join forces with writer (and fellow Marvel alum) Joe Pruett to begin their own comics label: AfterShock Comics.

Archie Comics gleefully takes its titular hero into the patently insane with Archie vs Predator.

Also, Archie vs. Sharknado is going to be a thing.

Books

It's one of the all-time young adult classics, and this week we got a 3-page snippet of A Wrinkle In Time that had been cut from the final edit of the book.

Games

There are plenty of video game titles that have a celebrity's name attached to them, but here are nine of the weirdest times that a game got a celebrity cameo.

F1 2015 is still a work in progress, but it's already gaining quite a bit of acclaim as a well executed and fundamentally fun racing simulator.

And, of course, we have the brand new trailer for Star Wars: Battlefront. Battlefront will be available on November 17th on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Movies/TV

Rumors abound following the release of an internal Sony memo that stated that Doctor Who will be made into a major motion picture.

Flash Gordon is also apparently going to be made into a movie, with Matthew Vaughn in talks to direct the project.

Celebrity Deathmatch will be coming back to MTV.

Olivia Munn will be joining the ranks of the X-Men as Psylocke.

This week was the week of all the new trailers. Below are the teasers for Episode VII, Star Wars: Rebels, and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Science/Technology

On Thursday Central Japan Railway announced that the newest incarnation of their line of maglev trains reached a speed of 366 mph (590 kph) during a test run. If these tests continue to turn out well, this new shinkansen will be taking passengers as soon as 2027.

We all know that space is mind-bogglingly vast, but here are some helpful infographics to help us wrap our heads around just how much space is out there in space.

A new study out of the University of Durham indicates that what we've been calling dark matter may not actually be completely dark after all.

You may know of someone who treats their dog as though the canine were their child (this someone may even be you), but it turns out that there's a growing body of scientific evidence that indicates this attachment isn't complete hyperbole.

On Tuesday SpaceX came this close to successfully landing their reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The company then provided this breakdown of exactly what went wrong (and right).

Could this Vulcan rocket give the Falcon 9 a run for its money?

While SpaceX was coming a hair's breadth away from success, Boeing and Lockheed Martin (with a little help from Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin) released these images of their forthcoming potential rival to the Falcon 9: the Vulcan rocket.

Meanwhile, the New Horizons probe sent color images of Pluto back to Earth. Here are said shots along with a breakdown of just what it takes to send the pictures from 2.9 billion miles away.

2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein's introduction of the General Theory of Relativity. Here is a thorough and interesting accounting of why the Theory is so important and how it continues to have a massive impact on theoretical physics a century later.

Just one more reason to fear your future robot overlords: they now know how to use swords (with bonus robot swordfighting video goodness!)

Your pain reliever of choice may also be relieving you of happiness.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Meet Ronald Mallett. He's the theoretical physicist who's trying to bring us the first functional time machine.

Chauvet Cave contains some of the most detailed and astounding examples of Paleolithic art known to humankind. It's also one of the most tightly guarded places in all of France. One Smithsonian reporter was among the few individuals given access to the Cave and this was his experience.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy Easter to all you celebrating today and best wishes for a happy remainder of the con for everyone attending WonderCon or Anime Boston this weekend. Woo for convention season getting into full swing! Also exciting: the chance to win a copy of Star Wars: Armada, get your chance by following the instructions here.

Back from getting your entries in? Great! Now let's get down to the week in Geekdom!

Comics

Comics as we're experiencing them today are the result of three-quarters of a century's worth of drafting and evolution. In that spirit, here are 50 issues that helped define the modern comics industry.

It seems like something of an April Fools prank, but is is possible that Superman has been in the Marvel universe all along?

Is the Clark Kent disguise much better than we all thought?

Did you know that the Avengers once did battle with the Church of Scientology? Neither did we.

Movies/TV

Old and busted: comic book movies. (old) New hotness: video game movies.

Yesterday Mr. Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., turned 50!

It's become one of the most iconic opening sequences on the small screen, but where did the Game of Thrones intro come from? Turns out there's quite an interesting backstory.

George R.R. Martin will be developing a new science-fiction TV series for HBO (sadly not derived from Tuf Voyaging). The author also claims he's buckling down to finish Winds of Winter in an effort to complete the much-anticipated tome by 2016.

While we're on the subject of Game of Thrones, Miss Maisie Williams, Arya Stark herself, has confirmed that she will have a guest role in the next season of Doctor Who.

Games

Want to get your game on but you're a bit short on cash? Check out these 10 Steam games that are completely free to play.

Speaking of free, click here to play a hybrid of Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Pong for the low, low price of nothing.

You can also play this level of Super Mario 64 that's been painstakingly re-made in HD.

Fans of Star Citizen have thrown a combined $77 million USD at the title's developers, but, three years after its Kickstarter closed, they have yet to receive a complete, bug-free game.

The guys behind the insanely popular party game Cards Against Humanity have released a science-themed expansion. Awesome bonus: all the proceeds from sales of the new pack going to fund a scholarship (a full-ride for an undergraduate degree) for women in the STEM fields.

Science/Technology

Astronomers using two pictures from New Mexico's Very Large Array have been able to capture the birth of a star. Extra impressive: the images they used were taken 18 years apart.

The technicians at CERN were keen to get in on the April Fool's fun with this claim that they had confirmed the existence of the Force.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum also tried to pull a fast one on Wednesday with this 'exhibit' featuring Wonder Woman's invisible jet.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham were amazed to discover that a nearly 1,000-year-old folk remedy made from garlic is able to eliminate one of the most feared infections of our time: MRSA.

Nuclear submarines have fascinated the public for decades, but decommissioning them is a laborious, lengthy, and extremely hazardous process. Where do nuclear submarines go to die?

General Awesomeness

These programmer proverbs will likely prove amusing to all you software devs out there.

We started off this post with a mention of con season getting into full swing. Here's a fun, but poignant reminder of why conventions are so important.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy weekend everyone and best wishes for what remains of your con for everybody at Emerald City Comic Con right now. Of all the conventions out there that we've yet to try, ECCC is at the top of our Potential Cons for 2016 list. We're giving serious thought to making a trip to Seattle happen next year, so if you've been to ECCC and would like to offer us any advice or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you!

But ok, less about next year and more about this week in Geekdom!

Comics

It's been an epic pantheon 75 years in the making, here is the story of how the Marvel universe as we know it came to be.

Games

The DLC for the already difficult motorcycle platformer, Trials Fusion, is so intense that even the developers can't beat some of the levels they've created.

Movies/TV

It was a rumor we'd been following for quite some time, but this week it became a reality: the X-Files is officially coming back to TV as a six-episode miniseries.

Tonight is the Season Five finale of the Walking Dead, but there's more zombie apocalypse goodness headed our way. The spinoff of the hit series officially has both a name and an order for two full seasons of production.

It's been nearly 10 years since the last broadcast of Star Trek: Enterprise, but, despite the lack of airtime, the series is experiencing something of a renaissance and here's why.

The Deadpool movie is only in the early stages of production, but we have at least one photo of Ryan Reynold's take on the Merc with a Mouth.

Leonard Nimoy's son is planning to make a documentary about the life and times of his erstwhile Vulcan father.

This past Thursday was the 10th anniversary of Doctor Who's rebirth on the small screen.

Science/Technology

Icelandic researchers believe they have mapped the genetic records for the entirety of their homeland.

Paleontologists from the University of Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the University of Pomona believe they have uncovered the common ancestor for lobsters, butterflies, and spiders (yep, they're related).

A group of California scientists (who may or may not be supervillains in the making) have discovered a treatment that appears to give humans extraordinary night vision. Warning: the subject for the study looks like he's been infected with the Black Oil from the X-Files.

On Friday, two astronauts were shuttled up to the International Space Station to begin a year-long stay in space.

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Is that fact due to cosmic happenstance or because Jupiter murdered its planetary rivals?

Speaking of celestial drama, the latest edition of Physical Review Letters contains this research from the University of Cambridge that appears to provide solutions to decades-old equations that describe the behavior of two black holes colliding with one another.

Image credit: NASA

Amazon.com, not content to soon have a fleet of drones, is building up an army of robots.

It's happened to just about everyone: you find yourself laughing at what would be considered an inappropriate moment. Why do we do this? Here comes the science.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Behold, a fully functional vinyl record player made entirely out of Legos.

George R.R. Martin believes he has the perfect solution to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Crowdfundables for Your Consideration

There are three weeks left for you to delve into the cyberpunk universe of Neon Sanctum. The Kickstarter for the card-based RPG will be up and running until April 19th. Bonus: it's EU-friendly!

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Hi everyone. Hope you had wonderful holiday if you were among those celebrating Thanksgiving this past Thursday. Now with November nearly behind us, it's onward into the holiday crush. In fact, right after I finish publishing this I'm going to hang up all our decorations and start doing the math to see how much we'll need in the way of ingredients for this year's cookie-baking season. Woo spreadsheets! Ok, yes...I'm entirely too excited about that. Anyhow, decorations and math aside, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.

TV/Movies

Arugably the biggest story of the week was Friday's release of the 88-seconds-long teaser trailer for Episode VII. If you've gotten your fill of next-generation X-Wings and desert planets, check out this shot-for-shot breakdown of what footage Abrams has graced us with. Also, if you were wondering who the narrator of the trailer is, that would be Andy Serkis.

While we're gushing about the Episode VII trailer, here's a fan-made version shot entirely in Lego (took the dude 12 straight hours to create!)

The Episode VII trailer may have gotten the lion's share of attention this week, but it was not the only trailer to hit the interwebs. We also got our first glimpse of Jurassic World.

Whovians have have spent much of the current season debating just how long the Doctor's current companion will be featured. The BBC has confirmed that the upcoming Christmas special will address the future of the character.

While Thursday may have been Thanksgiving for some of us, it was also the 50th anniversary of the first days of filming for a little show called Star Trek.

We still have about a month left in the year, but the 'best of 2014' lists are already popping up. Check out this compilation of the best movie bloopers from the year in film.

JK Rowling has confirmed that she has finished the script for a Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The movie is scheduled to hit theaters in November of 2016.

Science/Technology

The apparent dearth of life in what we can see of the universe has perplexed researchers for decades. Now the latest edition of Science postulates that one of the reasons for our cosmic loneliness may have a lot to do with the high levels of radiation out there in space.

We may be effectively alone in the universe for the time being, but data from the Philae lander may provide us with clues as to the origins of life on Earth.

Cooling down a building generally takes an enormous amount of energy, even with the most efficient of air conditioners. Researchers at Stanford University feel they have a better solution in the form of this ultra-thin material that beams excess heat into space.

We may be looking to beam stuff out into space, but it turns out that Earth may also have a previously unknown way of shielding itself.

Bridgmanite was allegedly the most abundant mineral on Earth, but pure samples are now quite difficult to come by. So how to scientists obtain specimens? Meteorites.

The world's oldest computer may be a century or more older than previously thought.

Waiting while a loved one undergoes a surgical procedure can be very nerve-wracking. To assuage this anxiety, a group of Florida physicians have developed a smartphone app that provides friends and family members with real-time updates of a given operation.

What do Blu-Rays featuring Jackie Chan and solar panels have in common? Answer: one was used to increase the efficiency of the other by 22%.

Google is reinventing the spoon to...help Parkinson's patients?

How to survive a spaceship disaster.

Do you have a knack for developing deep-space capable communications and could do with an extra $5 million USD? NASA has just the contest for you.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Samuel Sevian is about a month away from turning 14. He's also the youngest-ever American Grandmaster of chess.

These are 12 board games that are purported to make their players into better people.

For the past five years, the Vulcan Institute for Cultural Anthropology has helped put on a performance of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol entirely in the Klingon language. This year will be the final time the production graces the stage.

Crowdfundables for Your Consideration

For most of us, space travel is something reserved for thought experiments and daydreaming. If you've always wanted to go to the moon, Lunar Mission One would like to make your celestial musings at least a partial reality.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Happy Sunday everyone and best wishes for a happy con to those trying to squeeze the last few minutes of awesome from BGGCon right now. The GIR and I are giving serious consideration to attending BGGCon in the near-ish future, perhaps as a substitute for Gen Con should the latter morph into an exorbitantly priced kerfuffle in 2015. One of the brilliant side effects of the Nerdaissance is that we're seeing new, innovative conventions pop up as others outgrow their infrastructure. Bringing excellent games to more people is never a bad thing.

Before I get down to a serious session of pie-baking for this upcoming Thursday, let's get down to the week in Geekdom!

Games

Telltale Games drew everyone's attention with the announcement that they will be making one of their signature interactive story games based on Game of Thrones (the show, not the books). While the first chapter of this title won't be out until mid-to-late 2015, we can get a little taste with the below teaser trailer:

Goat Simulator is now an MMO. That is all.

One German town has installed small terminals on street corners that will allow users to play the classic arcade staple Pong while they wait for the signal to cross.

TV/Movies

Season seven of Star Trek: The Next Generation will be released to Blu-Ray on December 2nd. To promote the upcoming release, this gag reel of some amusing never-before-seen moments from the show has been put together.

These 21 storylines may have poor standing among Whovians, but are these episodes actually better than initially believed?

36 years ago this past Monday brought the Star Wars Holiday Special to the small screen for the first time. This retro review of the Special provides an amusing account of how the show was initially received.

Monty Python finally bids us all adieu.

Science/Technology

On Friday a piece of NASA hardware history went off to proverbial pasture. The massive horizontal countdown clock that allowed spectators to measure the minutes and seconds until the launch of a shuttle or other rocket has been officially retired.

A mission to Jupiter's moon, Europa, just got a whole lot more likely thanks to Texas Congressional representative John Culberson and none other than Bill Nye.

Despite last week's mindboggling triumph of the Philae Lander, the European Space Agency is beset with squabbling derived from, you guessed it, politicking. The latest victim: Chief Scientific Advisor Anne Glover. Her crime: relying on scientific evidence.

This is what happens to uranium fuel rods in the event of a nuclear meltdown.

Is this the real life, or is it just (computer generated) fantasy?

Emilott Lantz had a microchip implanted into her hand as part of a 50-person human trial of digital/organic enhancements.

Researchers at Stanford University have created these specialized, gecko-inspired pads that allow for a wearer to easily scale walls. Spider-man was unavailable for comment.

Google has found that, in order to be better drivers, its autonomous cars need to act a little more human.

The Large Hadron Collider is coming back fast and furious from its maintenance shutdown. On Wednesday, CERN researchers announced that they have potentially discovered two new subatomic particles.

What if, instead of a state of matter, Dark Energy was instead a force acting upon all that we can perceive (and a lot of stuff that we can't)?

A cadre of scientists from Australia, Canada, China, and the United States may have solved Darwin's Dilemma.

Crowdfundables for Your Consideration

One of our favorite video game experiences from Boston FIG, the head-to-head hybrid tactical base-builder Prismata, now has a Kickstarter. Fans of collectable card games, real-time strategy, and tabletop strategy will almost assuredly love this title. So check it out; you won't regret it.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

If you're celebrating Thanksgiving next Thursday, but don't care all that much about things like football or parades, perhaps consider these excellent board/party games as a potential way of passing the time until dinner is ready.

Check out these amazing watercolor prints by Artist Adam Lister. He employed his Cubist-esque style to render some of the most enduring nerd and pop culture iconography into 8-bit brilliance.

Speaking of pixelated awesomeness, these gifs will satisfy your desire for both the nostalgic and all things Game of Thrones related.

From the Annals of Awwww. Someone took their love of Guardians of the Galaxy to a whole new level with the building of this Groot swing.

It is a thing of profound beauty, this incredibly detailed model of the Millennium Falcon. Also, it's made entirely from cardboard.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

It's...Sunday? <> I'll issue apologies now if this post seems incoherent, as Extra Life 2014 drew to a close only about three hours ago. It was an excellent run, arguably easier than last year due in no small part to the release of Civilization: Beyond Earth this past Friday, but the GIR and I are definitely feeling the effects of sleep deprivation this morning. Despite that fatigue, the GIR managed to crank out his traditional gaming-inspired haiku! And, of course, being a little tired is a minuscule price to pay in order to help out the Children's Miracle Network. The numbers are still being tallied as of this writing, but it looks like this year's effort surpassed the 4 million USD mark, which is more than half a million dollars over last year's total.

Good times and good games all for an excellent cause. A special shout out goes to the donors that supported team the Care and Feeding of Nerds and the members of our Steam community who offered their time as Player Two for either the GIR or I. We couldn't have done it without you!

So today's post will be a bit on the short side, but there's still plenty of goodness to be had on This Week in Geekdom!

Games

The Xbox One is coming up on its first birthday and it hasn't been the smoothest of sailing this past year. Here is what Microsoft officer Phil Spencer had to say about the console and how it stacks up against the PS4.

Titanfall now has a co-op wave defense mode. Check out the details for this update and the forthcoming DLC, Deadly Ground, here.

Daleks: exterminators extraordinaire and...programming teachers?

Comics

Ever wanted a detailed look at the vehicles in the Marvel-verse? Well these schematics will give you just that.

Image credit

TV/Movies

It's still two weeks away from formal release, but Chris Nolan's Interstellar is already racking up millions of dollars in ticket sales.

Fans of the A Song of Ice and Fire books have long since been made aware that the TV series differs quite a bit from the source material. These original Westeros lovers are in for more conversation fodder, as season five of Game of Thrones is set to deviate even more from the texts.

George Lucas believes that movie studios lack both talent and imagination.

Bronies rejoice! Hasbro is in the process of developing a My Little Pony movie. The project is set to release in 2017.

Science/Technology

He may be fresh off his Nobel prize win, but Eric Betzig it's letting a little thing like a laureate slow him down. The most recent edition of Science contains a whole different set of research that may revolutionize microscopy all over again.

Even the sun was in on the gaming celebrations this week. Check out the pac-man-like images of this week's solar eclipse.

Vulcanologists have been working for decades trying to develop a detailed, accurate forecasting methodology for volanic activity. This is what they've developed so far.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own real-life Transformer? Well, Brave Robotics, Astratec Corp, and Torny Co. may have inched closer to making that dream a reality.

Air New Zealand loves embracing its homeland's connection to the Lord of the Rings films, but they may have outdone themselves with their new in-flight safety video. (Bonus: Elijah Wood cameo!)

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!

This Week in Geekdom

Posted by Kel

Hope everyone's having a great weekend thus far. It's been a pretty exciting week here on the Care and Feeding of Nerds. We're meeting those content goals we talked about last week and, as part of that effort, we officially brought the GIR on board as a regular contributor. If all goes well, the GIR may have company in the authorial department in the not-so-distant future which would translate into even more (hopefully) fun things to read!

As the blog grows and takes on its new shape I watch the transformation almost in disbelief. In a few short years we've gone from a simple collection of my various nerdy mutterings to a dynamic place that hundreds of people from around the world visit every day. All this was made possible by you, the readers. You guys are amazing and I can't thank you enough.

Ok, I promise I won't get all mushy on you today. I'll just give a quick virtual hug and get down to the Week in Geekdom.

Games

Over the past few months, we've talked quite a bit about how this year is the 40th birthday/anniversary of D&D. As another part of the ongoing celebrations, here's a look back at how the groundbreaking RPG has developed and changed in its 40 years of adventuring.

While we're on the subject of gateway games, here are 10 facts you may not have known about Duck Hunt (including how to enact vengeance on that forever-mocking dog).

Psychology researchers from Florida State University wanted to know which was better for your brain: the billed-to-be educational game Luminosity and the classic puzzle-platformer Portal 2. Their answers, though only semi-conclusive, are definitely amusing.

Dead Island had one of the most singularly gut-wrenching game trailers known to humanity. Now Dead Island 2 aims to build on that emotional capital.

TV/Movies

Constructed languages, a.k.a. conlangs, have become increasingly popular features in both movies and TV over the course of the past decade but, as this article delineates, their origins and impacts have much deeper roots.

It's only been six years since we got the first cinematic incarnation of I Am Legend, but Warner Bros. has confirmed that a reboot is already in the works.

Also in the category of face-palmable movies that are apparently being made is Tetris: the Movie.

Science/Technology

Image courtesy of MIT

If given a choice, the vast majority of people would rather swallow a pill than get a shot. Now researchers from a joint effort between MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have developed this special pill that is capable of injecting drugs directly into a patient's digestive tract. Their findings appear in the latest issue of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and may have myriad applications for diabetes sufferers and other patients that rely largely on injectable medicines.

Ever wonder why you can't seem to resist the siren's song of junk food? Here comes the science.

It may be the first work of Bayensian statistics to include a spoiler warning, but for good reason. Richard Vale, a mathematics professor at the University of Canterbury, has produced this work which uses the predictive capabilities of Bayensian modelling to ascertain who will live and who will die in the forthcoming two installments of the a Song of Ice and Fire series.

As virtual reality edges closer to becoming actual, mass-consumable reality, scientists and hardware producers alike are eager to discover the potential applications of the technology. One potential effect: virtual reality may make humans nicer.

The phrase 'snap-judgement' may be more apt than originally surmised. Researchers at the University of Melbourne have concluded that, though humans often make judgments before their brains can even process the information being presented, we can make predictions about those judgments based on the ancillary brainwaves.

Double rainbow, what does it mean? Apparently the 'meaning' may have something to do with concentric circles if NASA's image is to be believed.

Speaking of NASA, they would like you to know that, if you happen to live in North America, there will be a total lunar eclipse during the morning of October 8th. Read here for more information on when to spot this eclipse of the 'Blood Moon'.

The ongoing feud between Apple and Samsung may get even more heated as Samsung is in the midst of trying to acquire a certain bit of interactive voice recognition software.

Will the TARDIS get a green makeover to better align with the new color scheme of police call boxes?

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Are you a huge fan of zombies? Do you live in or will you travel to California? If the answer to both of those is yes, then this may be the interactive experience for you.

Crowdfundables for your Consideration

Attendees of Gen Con will likely be familiar with True Dungeon. Now, the makers of the much-beloved true-to-scale dungeon crawling adventure game bring you UpWorks: the Ultimate Modular Castle Building System. The project strives to live up to that bold title, bringing backers a wholly modular and highly durable set of tools with which to build castles and other architectural terrain for 25mm scale miniatures. Upworks is also being run by Jeff Martin, president of the much lauded terrain crafter Dwarven Forge. The project has already met its initial funding goal, but there's still plenty of time to jump in and benefit from the many available stretch goals.

Uber Entertainment is hoping to create Human Resources, a real-time strategy game for PCs. The title is meant to be a bit amusingly misleading as the human resources in question are not a corporate department, but the literal ammunition and supply line of various gargantuan invaders bent on global domination. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has put together this excellent summary of this intriguing, tongue-in-cheek, and visually arresting project. There are 30 days left to get in on Uber's Kickstarter if you're keen to wreak some planetary havoc.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!