Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

• Great Costumes from SDCC 2011 (btm)
  • Careful, some are a little saucy.

• Batman: The Last Laugh
  • Fan Film Done Right

Gold Sponsors:

Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History

• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Release

• New DVD Movie Releases
  • Rio, Rio 3-D BR
  • Conan the Barbarian (International Cut) – Conan the Destroyer, BR
  • Braveheart / Gladiator BR
  • Eastbound & Down S1 + 2 (think KSwiss)

Entertainment Geekly (new feature)

• Die Hard 5 Rumors
  • Yipee – Kai –  Why???
  • possibly directed by  Noam Murro (300 prequel, Xerxes)
  • Set largely in Russia w/ his Son, blah blah blah

• Cowboys & Aliens
  • Released and achieved #1 in the US (barely beat out the Smurfs)
  • What have yall heard and do yall plan to see?
  • Harrison Ford is looking rough

Geek Speak

• SDCC Talk (Kristin, etc)
  • New Movies (Spiderman, Ghostrider, etc)
  • Costumes
  • After-parties

• Video Graphics x 100,000, Real or Fantasy (sm)
  • A company claims to have moved from Polygons to pixel/atoms
  • “Improves the quality of computer graphics infinitely”
  • In todays technology, times a 100,000
  • explain polygons
  • Changing from polygons to atoms

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Apple Antics
  • Apple has more money than America? (btm)
    • Latest news from the US Treasury is that the United States has an operating balance of $73.7 Billion
    • Apple’s most recent financial reports shows it’s reserves at $76.4 Billion
    • The US is spending approximately $200 Billion more than it takes in every month.
    • Apple, meanwhile, is raking in cash with it’s latest quarter showing 125% more income than this time last year.
    • What’s Apple planning to do with this extra cash?
      • Industry watchers think they are building a war chest to be used for later acquisitions for other businesses and technology patents.
      • Barnes and Noble bookstores and Netflix have both been identified as possible targets.
    • There’s also this really cool house on Pennsylvania Avenue they might be interested in. it’s white and we all know how much Apple likes white products.
  • Skype gets posted for iPad then promptly pulled
    • for a long time, no approved Skype app optimized for IPad
    • Presto, inadvertent publish and then a prompt pull by Skype itself
    • Hopefully means it will be released shortly
  • Apple blocks Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia
    • Claims 10 patent infringement including slide tab to unlock
    • Australia actually honored the injunction, Korean company has to respond
    • This after newest Galaxy Tab compares favorably with IPad 2

• Nintendo President Takes 50% Pay Cut to Reduce 3DS Price (btm)
  • The slow selling 3DS is cutting it’s price from $249 to $169
  • This means Nintendo will be losing money on each sale.
  • To help with the loss company president Satoru Iwata told shareholders that he and other executives will be taking a significant paycut.
  • He will be taking a 50% cut while directors close to the project are giving up 30% and other executives will be losing 20%

• Internet Enabled TVs Interfaces just got better (SM)
  • Ever get frustrated with your TV’s interface?
  • Most TV’s are internet connected nowadays but are a pain to setup and maneuver
  • Heck, if you own cable, you have plenty of on-demand but GL getting to it
  • Poor Interface design makes users not want to use your products
  • Insignia (owned by BB) recently has gone to the TiVo interface to solve that problem
  • Still no DVR included out of the box or over-the-air program guide
  • Wait-and-see but its a step in the right direction

• Blizzard Makes Diablo III Require An Internet Connection (udg)
  • Remember how Ubisoft has managed to upset just about every gamer on the planet by requiring an always-connected machine to play its PC games? Well, Blizzard is doing the exact same thing with Diablo III. That’s right Diablo fans, if you want to play you need a solid internet connection. Offline play is just not an option.
  • If you want a reason as to why this decision has been made, Blizzard is happy to provide you with two. The first is of course piracy, which they believe an always-connected game will limit. The second is down to providing a fair game on Battle.net.
  • Blizzard is not allowing any mods in Diablo III and doesn’t want any cheats being used either. The developer states the only way to control this is with a game they can guarantee isn’t running any such additional software. Keeping you online during play apparently solves that problem and means whatever level your character is, is a true representation of the time you have spent in the game, not some mod or cheat working overtime in the background.
  • The final bit of news that has appeared about the game is that buying it might not be the end of your spending. The auction house included in the game will accept real money for buying items as well as allowing you to sell them. Blizzard’s reason for including this is for those gamers who have, “more money than time.”
  • Has Blizzard just made three huge mistakes, or is this what needs to happen for PC gaming to survive? I can imagine a few pre-orders have been cancelled already, and have to question the logic behind what Blizzard is doing here.
  • Diablo has a massive following, yet removing mods, requiring a connection, and introducing cash to the game to get ahead all seem like steps that will turn fans off rather than building excitement for the release.

• Et tu Adobe? (udg)
  • So, along with everyone else ::cough Apple cough:: Adobe is abandoning Flash as well. Their new tool, Edge, still encourages all the “flashy” loveliness, except that if Edge does it- it’ll be CSS, Javascript or HTML5. NOT Flash.
  • Don’t start calling it the “Flash-killer,” Edge is not intended to put Flash out of its misery or even to encourage developers to switch over to HTML5, but rather open up a new development path while Flash development presumably hits a wall.
  • As of right now, Flash can do some things better than HTML5. So it’s still an important part of the web and not going to up and disappear any time soon. . Still, Adobe seems to be well aware that developers will eventually abandon Flash for HTML5 and while they don’t intend to expedite that process, they are doing what they can to grab a piece of the new pie.
  • At the moment, Edge is available, for free, to anyone who wants to see what it can do. The 1.0 version proper will probably launch sometime next year. While Edge is obviously still a very new tool, it holds promise for developers who are looking to move beyond the messy, messy world of Flash and users who are getting tired of not being able to view .swfs on their mobile devices because no one wants to deal with the messy, messy world of Flash. Even though Adobe is allowing Flash to continue kicking around, it’s good to see them with a horse in the HTML5 race. Here’s to hoping Edge can “cut” it, and Flash can slowly saunter off to pasture where it probably belongs.

• Japan Brings Us One Step Closer to Cylons (as usual) (btm)
  • Japanese researchers are working on a robot that reacts to situations by making educated guesses based on past experiences
  • Robot was built on a learning mechanism called Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network (SOINN) which processes information and lets the robot estimate future patterns and networks.
  • Future applications are both endless and a little scary as SOINN allows robots to learn from the Internet and other robots.

• Paypal Strikes Back at Anonymous (udg)
  • I’m sure we all remember Anonymous’ attack on Paypal last year after they bloced the Wikileaks accounts transactions. Well, now they’ve come up with enough evidence to strike back at Anonymous with a lil help from the FBI. In fact they’ve got a list of over 1,000 IP addresses left behind when Anon attacked. (Remember my DOS lecture before?? Yup!)
  • These IP Addresses were left behind from the DDoS attacks which were targeted at PayPal. Those IP Addresses could prove both useful or useless to the FBI as they start their investigation. The DDoS attacks are usually performed on computers that have been infected with viruses so the owner of the machine might not even know they are playing part in the attack. However the FBI may be able to perform forensics on those computers to find out where the infection originated from.
  • I am sure this story will heat up as time progresses, stay tuned for more details.

Intarweb Goldmine

• Castles Made Out Of Human Hair (udg)

• • What goes well with the cultured human hair necklace? A castle made entirely out of human hair, of course! Artist Augustina Woodgate created 3,000 bricks of human hair and built two castle sculptures as part of a series called “I Want To Be A Princess.” One of the two sculptures, called Tower, reaches about four and a half feet off of the ground, and the different colored bricks are simply different colors of hair — the yellowish window framing is made of bricks of blonde hair.
  • Woodgate’s second sculpture, Sandcastle, sports molded tops — similar to how one molds parts of a sandcastle with buckets — that sit atop a chaotic pile of hair, simulating a crumbling base. Woodgate’s hair castles will be debuting at Spinello Gallery in Miami.

• Lithuanian Mayor Says Tanks for Illegally Parking (btm)
  • Arturas Zuoukas, mayor of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius is fed up with illegal parkers.
  • Decided to send a message by driving a Russian tank over illegally parked cars
  • Saying, “People with big and expensive cars can’t park wherever they feel like and ignore the rights of pedestrians and bike riders”
  • The shocked owner of the first Mercedes was photographed exiting a shop to find his car crushed by the smartly dressed civic leader.
  • The car was later re-crushed at a local junk yard.

• A Hallow Leg of a Different Kind (udg)
  • A South Carolina trooper says he found a kilogram of cocaine in a suspect’s prosthetic leg, after he pulled over a vehicle for driving slow in the fast lane.
  • The Anderson Independent-Mail reports trooper Brad Davis testified at a preliminary hearing Friday that he felt an odd bulge when he patted down Glodualdo Moreno Lojan. Davis says a plastic bag was stuffed between Lojan’s leg and his prosthesis.
  • Lojan and two others in the car face cocaine trafficking charges.
  • Davis says he pulled over the car with Texas plates in July for traveling 50 mph in the left lane on Interstate 85.
  • Lojan’s attorney, Kurt Tavernier, says the car should not have been stopped, since 50 mph is over the minimum highway speed.
  • The three remain in jail without bond.

• Computer Conducts Wedding
  • Guy in Houston couldn’t find a friend to officiate his wedding so he writes a program to do it for him
  • Called it Rev. Bit
  • he programmed Rev. Bit to declare at that most poignant moment during the ceremony when last objections may be raised: “If anyone here has anything to say that might change their minds or has any objections, they do not want to hear it and I will not recognize your objections since Miguel has programmed me to only recognize his commands.”
  • Get this, met his wife on “Sweet on Geeks”

Extra Links

• Square handling 4 million in payments daily

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

We are LIVE on Ustream.  This week we talk R2D2 XBox360, Chinese going too far, and even a bit of Ant-Man the movie… WHAT??? Seriously?? blech

Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• R2D2 XBox360 (SM)
  • Kinect version
  • Total R2D2 paint job
  • Gold 3PO controller
  • Star Wars Kinect Game
  • Star Wars for system sounds…
  • Must.Buy.Immediately.In.NOVEMBER!!! NOOOOO!~

• Not as Cool as R2 But Dad Hacks Wall-E Toy To Make Real Robot

Gold Sponsors:

Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History

• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Release

• New Released DVD’s / BR
  • Source Code – Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Action thriller where a guy gets amnesia and has to uncover his identity and a bomb plot at the same time
  • Red Planet – More realistic, gritty portrayal of space travel.. might be worth some of your time
  • Blues Brothers / Animal House – RIP Jon Belushi

Entertainment Geekly (new feature)

• FX Picks up Superhero movies left and right
  • Recently acquired Captn America (the one in theatres)
  • Already had TF: Dark of the Moon, Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Thor, Tron: Legacy, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Green Hornet
  • Maybe they should rename themselves “TSN: The SuperHero Network
  • Most of these came from an epic 2008 deal with Marvel, before the Disney acquisition

• Ant-Man: the Film???
  • Ant-Man is the superhero persona of Hank Pym
  • Recently came to the forefront with the Avengers cartoon being so popular
  • Can shrink and enlarge at will, Super-Genius, Pacifist
  • Has pretty side-kick “The Wasp” (Janet Van Dyne)
  • Really worth a full featured film though???

• Wanna See What We’re Not Missing W/ WW?? (udg)
  • io9.com “We’ve seen the unaired Wonder Woman pilot, and it’s actually kind of worse than we expected. It’s bad in the ways that we were all expecting, but it’s also bad in other, more fundamental, ways.”
• Comic Con Trailers (udg)
  • Features- The Amazing Spider Man, Haywire, Sherlock Holmes 2, Dark Knight Rises Teaser

Geek Speak

• SDCC! – Tease it for next week, Everyone has hangovers, we’ll bring on some heavy hitters and have a good round-table

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• The Chinese Have Now Gone TOO FAR! (udg)
  • Cuz selling fake iTunes cards and really cheap Apple knockoffs on their sites weren’t enough, last week five supposed Apple stores were operating in China. Only they weren’t actually official Apple stores!
  • To make it worse, they were nearly flawless copies of the official stores. To the point that the employees thought they were working for Apple!
  • Two of those five have since closed. But, not for them being complete fakes. Nope, the only reason they are closed is because neither had a business license in the first place.
  • The iFakes hit the major media and were brought to light last week when blogger  BirdAbroad visited one and spoke to staff. The store she located and visited was in the southwestern city of Kumming, and is not one of the two that have been shutdown. There’s a video of how Apple Store-like the store is in our show notes.
  • What’s going to happen to the other 3 stores is unclear at the moment. Chinese law does deem the stores illegal, but it’s the Chinese. If they’re able to cough up a business license, there’s no guarantee they’ll get shut down.
  • One thing is certain- Apple is definitely going to be talking to Chinese officials and this could get interesting.

• Hacker Caught, 10 years in jail (SM)
  • Rogelio Hackett Jr. 25, of lithiuania, plead guilty to stealing 635,000 credit cards
  • Instead of light slap: Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200
  • Must pay $100,000 fine and serve 10 years in a jail
  • Guy had been hacking since 2002, and trafficing in purchased accts
  • Before you go all boo-hoo, the CC companies found that he bamboozled over $36 million dollars over the years
  • Yeah, I’m personally glad they threw the book at him

• Google’s Print Mag (udg)
  • Because you know they haven’t launched enough new stuff over the last few weeks, Google has now released the first US edition of its marketing mag Think Quarterly.
  • Actual print copies of the mag will be sent to a select and limited and are all kinds of lux with a magnetic cover, heat-sensitive end paper and a pretty blue ribbon fastener. Don’t fret though, us little people get to at least check out the online version.
  • The magazine is essentially a very pretty advertisement for how wonderful Google is, with a feature story highlighting the positive work done at Google. In addition to several pages dominated by advertising executives, the magazine also has several essays on the future of the Internet and society. I actually kinda dug it.
  • The UK version of Think Quarterly launched in March 2011, under the clear distinction that it is not intended to be a consumer magazine. Through Think Quarterly, Google may be taking steps to change its image from a familiar search engine to a group of innovative thinkers and strategists who have a real impact on the world.
  • But change their image with who? Well, potential advertisers of course. They are the people getting the snazzy print version, after all. The rest of us Googlers are just left with our Intarwebs.

• Samsung passes Apple in Smartphone Sales (SM)
  • Samsung passed Nokia for new sales in the last quarter
  • According to bloomberg, 18-21 million handsets were sold in the last quarter
  • Thats in comparison to the 20 million sold by Apple
  • Nokia has been sliding from their dominance for awhile now
  • M$ partnership has not helped them.
  • Lets be real, Everyone is waiting on the IPhone 5…

• Data Furnaces (udg)
  • Servers are energy hogs. Not just to run, but they get so bloomin hot you have to use more energy for the air conditioning that keeps the waste heat at by. This problem with inefficiency is only going to compound as the hoopla about the cloud continues.
  • Seems Microsoft has come up with a wacky-in-a-way-that-just-may-work solution: Distribute cloud servers to businesses and homes for use as heaters.
  • “Data Furnaces” as Microsoft dubbed them in a research paper on the subject would provide exhaust that, while too cool for energy regeneration (104-122 °F), is just right for space heating. Not only does this reduce waste, but it could increase the overall efficiency of the cloud servers involved by making it far more practical to locate specific servers near the areas they serve.
  • That’s a lot of win right there.
  • Obviously with issues like size, the fact heating systems are complicated, security, reliability, you get the point- this is something for way off in the future. But, it’s definitely got my interest piqued.

• Netflix Up, Blockbuster Wooing (SM)
  • Netflix made a profit, just not as much as investors had hoped.
  • To blame? The price hike announcement for September
  • Not all doom and gloom, their subscriptions are up 70% for streaming
  • Netflix talks with Dreamworks (Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar)
  • Blockbuster is looking to capitalize w/ a $9.99 1-disc out plan
  • (still no streaming from BB)
• Fox Gets Stupid (udg)
  • In what is probably one of the lamest ideas I’ve heard in a very long time, Fox has just announced that it will only allow approved cable or satellite consumers free next-day access to its popular TV shows. Fans could previously catch shows the next day on Fox.com or Hulu.com for free.
  • Don’t have cable or want to pay for Hulu? Well then you’ll have to wait until 8 days after they’ve aired to watch it.
  • Got DISH? No worries!
  • “DISH Network is proud to be the first pay-TV provider in America to give customers the opportunity to take full advantage of the new Fox.com viewing experience — at no additional cost,” according to a Fox press release.
  • Hulu Plus customers will also still have access to Fox shows, according to a tweet from New York Times reporter Brian Stelter. Fox hopes to add more cable and satellite partners in the coming months.

Intarweb Goldmine

• What Ya Get For Being A Sound Sleeper In South Africa(udg)
  • A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out – scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost.
  • His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.
  • He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region’s health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency.
  • The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.
  • The man – whose identity has been withheld – was treated in hospital for dehydration.
  • The man woke up at 1700 local time (1500 GMT) on Sunday, demanding to be let out of the chilly morgue in Libode village, frightening the attendants on duty.
  • “At first the men ran for their lives,” said Mr Kupelo.
  • Officials have urged the public to contact doctors or the emergency services so they can they can pronounce someone dead before calling an undertaker.
  • “You begin to ask yourself how many other people have died like that in a morgue,” said Mr Kupelo.
  • “We need to [get] the message across to all South Africans that it is very wrong for them to conclude on their own that a person has died,” he said.

• Jaws Jumps into boat… Literally (SM)
  • Have a front row seat to Discovery’s shark week? Not as close as these guys
  • 6 researchers off the coast of africa got the scare of their life
  • After an hour of shark activity, 10 foot great white breached the water and jumped halfway on the boat
  • In a panic and apparently trying to eat a crew member, he thrashed all the way on board and then became stuck
  • Despite the danger to their lives, the scientists eventually rescued the shark after being towed to port, letting it go, being beached, pulling it back out, and finally getting it out to sea

• Mystery Prisoner (udg)
  • A mystery man arrested on minor charges more than three weeks ago remains behind bars in Utah while law enforcement officials try to determine his true identity, which he refuses to reveal.
  • “This is really a strange case,” said Lt. Dennis Harris with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. “He just doesn’t want to be found.” The unidentified man, who has graying hair, a light beard and is believed to be in his 60′s, was arrested on July 1 for trespassing in a parking garage.
  • He was booked into jail on three misdemeanor charges and has thwarted any chance of release, with or without bail, by refusing to identify himself.
  • “I’ve been trying to think from A to Z why he would want to stay here … why he wouldn’t give us any information,” Harris said.
  • “He either has to be wanted by some other state or he could be on some other registry or database that has not shown up,” he added.
  • Law enforcement officials say the man is “fairly well spoken and educated,” but very guarded about his identity.
  • As a result of several short conversations with him, officers believe he may not be from Utah.
  • Officials gave the man a telephone calling card so he might contact friends or relatives, but he has not used it.
  • “He was very aware of what we were trying to do and he would not give us the slightest bit of information indicating where he was from or anything relating to his family situation,” said Harris.
  • “We’ve had a lot of people call in but nothing has panned out. Nothing,” he added.
  • Officials say in three weeks of jail the mystery man has shown a pleasant demeanor and has communicated that he is being treated well.
  • “He said the food has been great,” Harris said.
  • “I realize that sometimes people want to go to jail because they are homeless, have nothing, they are destitute. I’ve seen that over the years. I just don’t get the impression that’s the reason. He just doesn’t want to be discovered by somebody.”
  • Now in his fourth week of incarceration, the man added another twist to the story recently by hinting he had business of some kind outside prison that he would need to attend to.
  • “He said there was a point at some time that he would need to get out of jail,” Harris said. “That’s the closest I can find of what he wants to do. And that makes no sense to me whatsoever.”
  • I’m surprised I don’t know the guy. I seem to attract people like this.

• RDJ New Hazards: Exploding manholes
  • Imagine if you will, walking down the street
  • A rumble and a roar shake the ground and all the manhole covers explode into the air
  • This isn’t hollywood, welcome to Rio De Janeiro
  • Recently a manhole cover blew up into the air, injured 2 ppl, smashed into a nearby window, and ended in a parked car
  • This was the 130 of these in April alone…
  • Sparks from old transformers igniting “gasses” (read human methane) causing the random explosions around the city
  • Talk about some dangerous crap….

Extra Links

• Navy testing more lasers
• Q&A With The Man Behind The Lego LOTR Tower (udg)

We are LIVE on Ustream.  This week we talk Spotify, finally in the US, Batman vs. Cptn. Kirk in the ultimate cage match, and YES, it is officially confirmed, the Gods want more cowbell.

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

Just cuz it’s still making me giggle –

• Finally a Good Use For 3D Printers (btm)
• Millenium Falcon Bass Guitar (udg)
• INSANELY AWESOME FInal Fantasy Stop Motion (udg)

• Kid Finds a Piece of History and Gets to View History Up Close (btm)
  • After a 2006 Hurricane struck the North Carolina coast a Durham teen, Kevin Schanze found a piece of metal on the beach from the first stage of Apollo 16.
  • NASA confirmed it was authentic
  • The sheet of metal made a 30 year journey from the Florida coast to an inlet of the Outer Banks and floated into the Pamlico Sound.
  • NASA showed there gratitude by inviting him to see final Shuttle launch last week.
  • He was taken on an all-access tour of the Kennedy Space Center including the top of the Atlantis launch pad and the Atlantis cockpit.

• Turn your IPad into a Trek Pad… (SM)

Gold Sponsors:

Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History

• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Release

• Mtv Geek’s Guide to Manga on the Cheap (udg)
  • Even full price, most people consider manga a pretty good bang for your buck. But, it can be a really pricey habit- especially if you start a long-running series like One Piece.  But, thanks to the folks over at MTV Geeks,  here are their suggestions for 6 ways to get your manga fix for half price or less…
    • Your local library. Yup! Try the YA section as that’s where it’s usually shelved. Popular ones are usually checked out so don’t limit yourself just to your local branch. Most libraries have a swap system of some sort.  If you are looking for a specific volume, try plugging it into WorldCat, which is a mega-library catalog that will locate the copy closest to you.
    • Online swap clubs:  The most popular one seems to be Paperback Swap. It’s pretty easy to use: You upload a list of books you are willing to part with (it’s all done by ISBN so the information goes in automatically) and send out the books to people who request them. That means you pay the postage (usually less than $2.50 for a single volume), but in return, you get a credit to request a book from someone else. Paperback Swap is a general-book site, but you can set your defaults so the newest manga and graphic novel offerings are always displayed on the home page. The selection leans toward older series, but a number of book reviewers use the site, so newer volumes pop up as well, and you can ask to be notified if a particular book becomes available.
    • Freecycle: I belong to my local freecycle and never cease to be amazed by the range of items offered and found through here! Visit their site, find your local group then post a message saying you’re looking for manga and you may connect with someone who is cleaning out their collection.
    • Used book sales: It’s rummage sale time people! Get on out there. Also keep an eye out for libraries cleaning house.
    • Online shopping: Amazon and Barnes & Noble also offer used manga at astonishingly low prices, but watch out for shipping costs. You can find a lot priced at one cent on Amazon, but keep in mind that shipping is $3.99, so you’re actually paying four bucks out of pocket. Given that you can ship a volume of manga for less than $2.50 via media mail, Paperback Swap is a better deal. Ebay is a good bet if you’re looking for multiple volumes of a series, as shipping a number of items isn’t much more expensive than shipping one (and many sellers just charge the mailing cost, not an inflated shipping cost).
    • Digital: Digital manga can be a good way to go if you have a device to read it on, and if you watch out for special promotions. If you have an iPad, iPod Touch, or iPhone, check out the Viz app, which offers single volumes for $4.99, and stay tuned to the manga blogs, because they have a lot of sales.

• So there you go, six different ways to get your manga fix without resorting to piracy or robbing a bank. And don’t forget that most of these channels are good ways to pass on the volumes you are done with as well—recoup a bit of the cost by selling them online, trade up via Paperback Swap, or just get a bit of good karma by donating them to your local library.

• Google Releases own eBook Reader (SM)
  • Iriver – Fully integrated with the google book store
  • eInk display by LG that XGA resolution
  • Faster page turns due to beefier processor
  • full querty keyboard
  • Built in Wi-Fi, 6 weeks battery life
  • chromed buttons on the bottom for nav
  • $139.99 (Target and Target.com)
  • Too little to late?

• Capcom Lists Res Evil 15th Anniversary Collection (udg)
  • Capcom has listed for preorder on its Japanese e-shop a Resident Evil 15th Anniversary box, including the first four games in the survival horror franchise plus Code: Veronica, soundtrack CDs, and extra trinkets.
  • The full listing is as follows:

• Resident Evil Directors Cut
• Resident Evil 2
• Resident Evil 3 Last Escape
• Resident Evil Revival Selection [contains Resident Evil 4 and Code: Veronica]
• Resident Evil Code: Veronica soundtrack
• Resident Evil 4 soundtrack
• A number of Pins & Stickers
  • The first three games are the original PlayStation versions, which run on the old hardware, but the image above shows that the discs’ appearances have been redesigned for the bundle. The early games appear to have received some updated packaging as well.
  • Revival Selection for the PS3 contains HD versions of Code: Veronica and RE4, but it’s up to the player to complete the series collection with their own copy of Resident Evil 5. Thankfully Capcom has left a spacer in the box for you to do this.
  • The package will go on sale exclusively on Capcom’s e-Capcom online store (Japanese link) on September 8th for a price of 7,800 yen ($96 at current exchange rates, but the exchange rate is extraordinarily high lately).
  • There’s no word yet on an American release, but since there’s an equivalent online store for the US market (the Capcom Store) known for selling cool and rare stuff, it’s very possible that this one will cross the pond.

• Video New Releases (SM)
  • Rango – a lizard in the Wild West (first full animated film from ILM)
  • Robot Chicken – Star Wars III
  • Battle Beyond the Stars – If you crave total cheese, cell matted laser bolts, epicly cleavaged ships, and blatant rip-offs of Star Wars and Seven Samurai, this is the show for you
  • Damnation Alley – Get your Post Apocalyptic fix here…  w/ Burt Reynolds

Entertainment Geekly (new feature)

• Do Gods Love Cowbell?? (udg)
  • Gods Behaving Badly is a Fables/Fruits Basket sort of story with just a dash of American Gods‘ theme of washed up deities: The ancient Greek gods are alive and managing in a New York city brownstone, much to the surprise of their neighbors.
  • But then the actual casting is the aweseome!
  • The gods are: Aphrodite — Sharon Stone, Apollo — Oliver Platt, Artemis — Edie Falco, Demeter — Phylicia Rashad, Dionysus — Nelsan Ellis, Eros — Gideon Glick, Hades — John Turturro, Hermes — Henry Zebrowski, Persephone — Rosie Perez and Zeus — Christopher Walken.
  • Christopher Walken as the patriarch of an incestuous, petty brood played by some of the best character actors in the business? That’s worth paying attention to. And who knows- maybe there’ll be some cowbell.

• Boba Fett Movie? Possible? (btm)
  • In a recent interview ‘Captain America’ Director, Joe Johnston was asked if his former boss and mentor, George Lucas, had already seen the movie.
  • His surprising response was:
    • “You know if he wants to see it, I would show it to him. I’m trying to get George to make a feature based on Boba Fett.”
  • Says he would like to direct the Boba Fett movie and thinks it would be a lot of fun
  • Began his career as a storyboard artist for George Lucas and created designs for some of fandom’s favorite characters and vehicles including, Yoda, the Ewoks, The Millennium Falcon, the X-Wing and Y-Wing fighters, Imperial Snow Walkers, Imperial Star Destroyers and of course, Boba Fett.
  • One wonders if Lucas ever decided to hand over the reigns of the franchise to someone else why wouldn’t it be to one of the original trilogies original creators?

• Space Invaders Coming to a Theater Near You? (udg)
  • Space Invaders, the classic ’80s videogame, may be coming to a theater near you.
  • Producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Gigi Pritzker have optioned the rights to develop the project, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The two are looking for a writer.
  • For the uninitiated, Space Invaders was introduced in 1978 and became a pop culture phenomenon during the next decade when it was made available for the Atari 2600. The title is the top arcade game of all time, according to the Guinness World Records.
  • Given that brand equity and the track record for other films based on ’80s properties, like Transformers, the idea of a Space Invaders movie has been around for a while. Last March, the L.A. Times reported that Warner Bros. was negotiating with Space Invaders owner Taito about a movie.
  • Additionally, di Bonaventura has brought toy properties to the big screen. He is one of the producers of the Transformers films as well as G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra.
  • Meanwhile, a slew of movies based on videogames are in various stages of production. That list includes an Asteroids movie, a Missile Command flick and one based on Angry Birds. In the case of Space Invaders, though, the cult TV show Futurama seems to have beaten di Bonaventura and Pritzker to the punch with an episode based on the game.

• Wanna Be In The Dark Knight Rises? (udg)
  • The movie is looking for fans to fill a stadium in the Pittsburgh area on Saturday, August 6,” which would seem to indicate Heinz Field as the location.
  • The stadium scene calls for energetic football fans to cheer the Gotham Rogues in a game against the Rapid City Monuments. There will be door prizes, gift cards and autographed items. Go to beinamovie.com for full details.

• Speaking of the Dark Knight, WB has released a teaser trailer (btm)
  • Premiered with the Harry Potter movie
  • Now on Facebook page.
  • Mostly clips from the previous two movies but there’s some added footage from the new movie showing Batman preparing to do battle with Bane.

• Batman: Year One Coming to Video (btm)
  • Based on one of my all time favorite comic story arcs written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli in 1987
  • Clips indicate they’ve stayed very true to the original source material
  • Story recounts the beginning of Bruce Wayne’s career as Batman and James Gordons’s in the Gotham Police Department.

Geek Speak

• Twitter Turns 5 (SM)
  • Happy B-day, you text streaming social service
  • How has this little service affected the world
  • Iran Voting Conflict, Japan earthquake, major sporting events, etc.
  • Lets talk about our experiences
  • Outline some of the challenges for this free social cloud

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Spotify in the U.S. (SM)
  • music streaming service that has free and premium subscriptions
  • VERY popular over in the UK and Europe
  • Just barely opened for business in the US
  • How is it different than Internet Radio? You can actually stream selected tracks
  • Most devices supported with players
  • Premium services start around $4.99
  • Is it worth it?? .mp3 (you own) vs. Streaming (you get to listen but don’t own)

• Secret Service onto the Apple Store Spy Cam Artist (btm)
  • 25 year old Brooklyn artist Kyle McDonald installed software on computers in a NYC Apple Store
  • Software would take pictures every minute and capture the faces of Apple Store shoppers as they stared at the monitors of MacBooks.
  • Software would then send the images back to the artist where he was working on using them as part of a project.
  • Woke up to four Secret Service agents who took his two computers, his iPod and two flash drives.
  • Not sure what or if he will be charged with.

• Dear Anon- Pick a Direction and Stick With It. (udg)
  • Hacker group Anonymous has been booted off of Google+. However, the hacker collective is responding by creating its own social network called AnonPlus that won’t put up with “being shut down, censored or oppressed.” Google apparently kicked “Your Anon News” off of the social network because it apparently violated Google’s Community Standards. Google also pulled their Gmail account.
  • So, if  you can’t join em, beat em. As of right now, the only thing you’ll find at AnonPlus.com is a splash page, and there’s not a whole lot of information there. You can’t register, or even click any links for that matter. The only clickable link on the page is to the dev forum at the bottom of the page. The site is in “Revision: 0.5 Alpha” at the moment.
  • AnonPlus’s message on the front page says the site is to be a “new social network where there is no fear…of censorship…of blackout…nor of holding back.” The site is for everyone, and not just for members of Anonymous. Anonymous says the site will go up soon, but it can’t happen overnight.
  • The hacktivist group said in a post on a subsidiary site that activists being banned from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is the result of “walk(ing) to a different beat of the drum.” The hacker group said on AnonPlus that “the sheep era is over. The interwebz are no longer your prison.”
  • Anonymous isn’t the only one who was kicked off of Google+. William Shatner was also banned after Google believed his profiled to be a fake. Perhaps Shatner will join AnonPlus?
  • Then you’ve got the was supposedly disbanned now back part of Anon Lulzsec out hacking The Sun and redirecting it to a fake Murdock death story.
  • Last week Anon took credit for leaking 90,000 U.S. military email addresses stolen from servers owned by Booz Allen Hamilton. (Which honestly made me PISSED)
  • They need to stop chuggin the dew and snorting the pixie stix and pick a direction. I suggest one that continues to follow the Hacker’s Manifesto. Keep straying from that and you’re going to end up being made an example of.

• Your Next Job May Depend on Your Facebook History (btm)
  • It’s often said what you post online can never truly be deleted.
  • Several new companies are apparently trying to help that be true
  • Recently the FTC gave the company Social Intelligence the go ahead to run background checks on your Internet and Social Media history.
  • While the company doesn’t store 7 years of your history, it looks at 7 years of your online life and makes this available for potential employers
  • Looks for aggressive or violent tendencies or illegal activity, discriminatory activity, and sexually explicit activity.
  • While it redacts any identifiable images of the subject and ignores benign tomfoolery it’s still kinda creepy considering how much information many of us put online and forget about.

• Google’s + Button Already More Widespread Than Twitter’s (udg)

• • They’ve only been out for around a month and Google’s +1 buttons are more common on major web sites than the tweet button.
  • BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform provider, analyzed the 10,000 largest sites on the web and found a 33% surge in placement for Google’s +1 button during the past few weeks. The company found that +1 buttons are now on 4.4% of those sites, up from 3.6% in June. Meanwhile, Twitter’s plug-ins are displayed on 3.4% of the sites.
  • Both Google and Twitter trail far behind Facebook though, whose  “Like” button, is on about 20% of the sites’ front pages.
  • Plus runs out of disk space (SM)
    • Their notification system went on the fritz and was spamming ppl
    • Ran out of disk space for 80 mins
  • Already the Contact Export Wars Begin (SM)
    • Facebook has already swung the ban hammer on a company
    • They were exporting first and last names from FB and matching them to contacts on your local machine and on linkedin
    • You then had a free-and-clear contact list
    • Wasn’t much different than you going “Account->Account Settings->Download Your Information” to get a friends.html

• Amazon to rent textbooks (SM)
  • 30 day rentals with 1 day extensions
  • Ability to store annotations in the amazon cloud past rental period
  • Not all roses though
  • Cognitive process “where the information is” broken
  • Some of the illustrations are illegible (who looks at those anyways)
  • No chump change by selling books mommy and daddy paid for
  • John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis and Oxford University Press.
    • Half Price Books is now selling Textbooks (actual paper ones) online now too.

• Netflix Raising Prices by 60% (btm)
  • Starting September 1st Netflix will no longer offer a $9.99 package of DVD-by-mail and unlimited streaming
  • 23 million subscribers will now pay $15.98/month or $7.99 for just one of the two
  • Netflix feels their streaming content is now robust enough that many people don’t want both options.
  • “Given the long life we thing DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2.00 add-on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs,” said Netflix in its press release.

• Facebook Introduces Vending Machines for Computer Accessories(udg)
  • How many times have you been there? At work, some part of your computer goes kaput? Maybe the mouse is fried, power cable goes bad, you name it. Well, getting a replacement is usually a pain in the tush. I’ve had to write a request, submit to department head who then submitted to IT who then checked stock, and then.. you get the point.
  • Well it seems FB had cut out all the middle people and I can’t honestly think of any easier way than what they’ve done-  After some initial tests with a swipe card system and a cabinet, the social network went ahead and had some custom vending machines made. Each contain all the common accessories that regularly need replacing.
  • All a FB employee has to do to get a replacement is swipe their ID card and ket in the accessory they need. The employee gets quick access to the accessory and can continue working. Facebook gets a record of which employee took what device, and alerts can be put in place when a machine needs restocking. There’s also going to be the option to pull up a summary of employees and the number of accessories they get through in any given time period.
  • According to Tim Campos, CIO at Facebook, the vending machines have cut the cost of replacing such devices by 25%. There’s also going to be another cost saving in both time and money gained from each Facebook employee not having to wait for a replacement device.

• Google+ App finally released for iOS (btm)
  • While the Android app has been available from day one the iOS app took a little longer to get through the Apple approval system.
  • The much anticipated iOS app was released today providing many mobile features to iPhone users.
  • Several iOS users were a little upset that it doesn’t support iPad or iPod Touch devices.

• Family Time Now With Zombies (udg)
  • In The Walking Dead Board game, only the strong survive. The weak turn into walkers, and then turn against their former friends! Fight your way through zombie-infested Atlanta with your fellow survivors. Grab some weapons to clear a path. Visit destinations like the department store, old folk’s home, and the CDC. Find the tools you’ll need to live another day. Take on the role of Rick, Andrea, or one of the other hapless survivors and scrounge for sweet weapons like a Shotgun or Crossbow. Keep your eyes open for new allies, but watch your back! When supplies start running low, it’s every man for himself. If you can make it back to camp with enough gear to defend yourself and those you still care for, you win!
  • Should you fall to the hungry horde of walkers, the game doesn’t end. When a player dies and becomes a walker, they leave the world of the living behind and seek out the remaining survivors. Spring surprise attacks on the living, cause the walkers to frenzy, or contaminate the survivor’s supplies. Put the bite on your former friends and they’ll join you in your pursuit of the living.
  • The fate of the human race is in your hands, either as a survivor or a walker. Join us this September 2011 with Cryptozoic Entertainment’s The Walking Dead Board Game.

Intarweb Goldmine

• No Equal Rights for Monkeys (udg)
  • It was a wedding that thousands waited eagerly for since the engagement was announced. Invitations were sent, the details were meticulously labored over, and finally, to the almost-hysteric joy of the crowds, the big day arrived.
  • In the small village of Talwas, Rajasthan, Raju, a well-known cigarette smoking monkey, and his bride Chinki were married.
  • Raju had become a local celebrity after Ramesh Saini, a rickshaw driver, adopted him three years ago when he found the monkey unconscious.
  • He’s been a surrogate son to the childless Ramesh ever since.
  • “I want to enjoy the feelings of a son’s marriage through Raju’s wedding.” Ramesh told the publication. “We will welcome the bride in our house … after the wedding with all rituals.” Raju’s bethrothed Chinki lived with a priest in a nearby village.
  • More than 2,000 guests were expected to attend the pre-wedding feast and to watch Raju ride atop a horse in a procession, Stuff reported. The wedding was planned in accordance with traditional Hindi customs, including sacred fires and fragrant incense.
  • Monkeys are revered by many Hindus, because the deity Hanuman appeared in primate form.
  • But the carefully made preparations were thrown into havoc by government officials who cracked down on the animal nuptials, because monkeys are technically government property. So marrying a monkey, even to another monkey, is illegal
  • Two hundred guards from the forest department flooded Talwas on the wedding day after warning that all guests would be arrested. Hundreds of attendees showed up despite the threats, but Raju, Chinki and their owners had fled.
  • In a final twist, the owners announced that the monkeys married in a secret ceremony deep in the woods. Forest rangers captured the newlyweds, but Ramesh told Stuff that he is confident they will return.
  • “I know my son Raju, with his wife Chinki, will come back home,” Ramesh said. “I will have a big reception for them.”

• JellyFish shut down Nuclear reactor (SM)
  • Japanese reactor has to shut down.. for earthquake? for natural disaster? nope, for JELLY FISH
  • Thats right, the lil buggers swarmed around the coolant intake, gumming it up and forcing them to shut down a thermonuclear device
  • Who says Mother Nature 2 – humans 0
  • There is an upside to this… Free sushi for the whole country for at least 2 months, well nuked
  • This actually happens a lot, A couple other plants have shut down because of this same phenomena

• Who says Chihuahua can’t be guard dogs? (udg)
  • Don’t mess with the little guy with the big bark at the Ace Smoke Shop in Altadena, Calif.
  • The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office released some amazing surveillance video on Monday, showing what happened when armed robbers stormed into the shop on July 7.
  • They left with some money, but less than “they could’ve gotten,”as the Los Angeles Times reports, because of the owner’s Chihuahua. His “ferocious barking” and lunges at the bad guy’s legs look to have convinced the robbers to clear out quickly. No one was hurt.
  • According to LA Weekly’s The Informer blog, the real tough guy in this tale is named Paco and he weighs about 15 pounds.
  • The robbers are still at large.

• Jet Pack Fail (SM)
  • Fox 5 thought it would be awesome if they had a guy fly via jetpack on the start of their show..
  • So the show starts and the guy jumps to fly… and falls flat in the water
  • What do the anchors do??? roll on the floor in disbelief
  • Guy recovers and flies out of the water

• I don’t know what’s better, this story or the guy’s name (udg)
  • It’s tough finding even an odd job these days.
  • That’s why Utah-area resident Mork Encino, who swears this is his real name, created the oddest job for himself.
  • Encino, 28, on his website, advertises he’ll be human prey for marksmen with $10,000 to spare. It’ll cost you an extra $2k to hunt him in the nude.
  • He says he’s “generally unskilled” and hasn’t had a job in years. In the past, he’s worked in construction, landscaping and cleaned out storage sheds.
  • His greatest skill may be self-promotion: He’s appeared on radio programs and been written up by quite a few websites.
  • Since hunting people is highly illegal, valid hunting offers have been few and far between.
  • “I’ve had a variety of offers, none of which I’ve been comfortable accepting. As I’ve said, this is not my dream job. There’s obviously no longterm in it. This is just something I’ve resorted to in order to make others aware of my situation. It’s a job application, man. And a damn good one if I may say so,” Encino said via email.

• Tune In and Tune Out, i-Dosing with your iPod (btm)
  • Get your bonfires ready America!
  • Kids are downloading MP3s and getting high!
  • According to an Oklahoma news channel reporting on a new trend called i-dosing
  • Kids are putting on their headphones and listening to music which consists of a droning noise and promises to get you high.
  • Local schools have already sent home letters to parents warning of the new threat.
  • Sites are selling guides to how to properly get high on the MP3s
  • How will society react to this new menace?
  • Will politicians be asked if they’ve ever i-Dosed?
  • “I i-dosed, but I had it on mute”?

• Captain Kirk gets booted off Google+ (btm)
  • Joining in the Google+ craze, actor William Shatner accepted an invitation and joined
  • Shortly after making his first post Google took down his account for “violating standards”
  • He had only made one post saying “Hello”
  • This could be related to Google+ trying to prevent fake accounts and pseudonym use.
  • Posted on his twitter account, “ “My Google+ account was flagged for violating standards. Saying hello to everyone apparently is against the rules maybe I should say goodbye?”
  • Shatner was returned to Google+ Monday with the following post, ““I am back plusers! I still do not know what happened but I will refrain from saying hello again for a while just in case. My best, Bill.”
  • Currently there seems to be no verification system for Google+ accounts, unlike Twitter with their check mark and “verified” accounts.
  • Google reps could not be contacted for comment.

Extra Links

• Best Google+ Tips & Tricks (udg)
• Google Declares Nuclear war on Malware
• QR Tattoo spawns animation (SM)

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• Disaster Survival Nerd Robo Shelter (udg)
  • With the inevitable alien invasions and zombie robot apocalypses, we need to be prepared for things. Kacey Wong gets that. And he’s come up with something quite epic. It’s a little thing he put together to prepare for pretty much any worldly disaster you can think of.
  • It is a solar panel fitted robo box that, with the help of the sun, is able to generate 15 volts of electricity to power any kind of appliances that you may want to keep you going strong after a worldly disaster. But, that’s not all.  It’s the ultimate disaster house too.When you open it, it will serve as a quite comfortable bed with cozy lights and everything. When the morning comes, you can just fold it up and roll it along with you while looking for more survivors.

• Why Not Mount a Wide Angle Camera on Fireworks? (btm)
  • Texas man decided to celebrate the Fourth in an odd way.
  • Connected a wide-angle lens camera to his fireworks and uploaded the really cool video to YouTube.

Gold Sponsors:

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• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
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Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Release

• Geek Chic Daily Goodies (udg)
  • Nothing says Independence Day like fireworks, charred meat and wince-inducing family get-togethers. Think your family is weird? Check out the hilarious AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com, where voluntarily submitted pics turn somebody else’s kin into your comedy. Like the site? We can do you one better, with a free prize package that includes the best-selling, Awkward Family Photos book and the spin-off board game. It’s fun for the whole family as players answer absurd questions based on the uncomfortable images within. Breed multiple entries for yourself by visiting our Facebook or Twitter (#GCDawkward). Hurry: contest ends Thursday, July 7, 2011.

• DVD Movie Releases
  • 13 Assassins – OM Freakin Gosh. I gotta see this. Claimed to be best samurai movie since the Kirosawa era
  • DAS BOOT (BR) – Classic German submarine flick. Must see.
  • Hobo with a Shotgun (for our friend @NakedHobo) – Over the top campy gore
  • Wake Wood – OH WOW… undead children… I’m scared just reading this summary. Must See!
  • Hannie Caulder – Kill Bill but western Style. Raquel Welch in britches.

Entertainment Geekly (new feature)

• Can’t Wait for Captain America to Open July 22? (btm)
  • Captain America comes to DVD July 19
  • Unfortunately it’s the 1990 Matt Salinger “classic” (sm) boooo! blech!
  • Also features Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox

• Harvey Award Nominees Announced (btm)
  • Award, named for famed cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman, recognizes outstanding work in comics and sequential art.
  • Ceremony to be held August 20 in Baltimore during the Baltimore Comic Con
  • Web Cartoonist Scott Kurtz will once again take emcee duties
  • Darwyn Cooke and Universal UClick lead the nominations
  • Voting is open to anyone professionally involved in a creative capacity within the comics field.
  • More details on the Harvey Awards web site.

• JJ Abrams & his Gang of Continuity Killers Continue to Destroy Star Trek for True Fans (btm)
  • Roberto “Bob” Orci is a g- danged idiot
  • Has proven he has no freaking clue how time-travel works within the continuity of Trek citing his knowledge of how quantum mechanics works.
    • I know when I have a question about quantum mechanics the first person I think of asking is a second rate TV writer.
  • Now he’s showing that he has no freaking clue how Canon works in Trek
  • If we don’t put a stop to this BS right the F now we’ll end up in a quagmire of Expanded Universe insanity like Star Wars and Doctor Who.
  • Speaking to GamePro Magazine he said,
    • “True fans will tell you that canon is only what’s filmed. I’m not an authority on what is canon. However, I will tell you that this may be the first game that falls within the parameters of the people who are in charge of canon for now; the “supreme court,” as we call ourselves… this is the first time where the game itself is generated by the people who are deciding canon and we generated the game to fit within canon.”
    • “We want to make sure that in a way the game is its own movie. I don’t want to give away who the villains are, but the people in the game might be people who end up in the movie. I like to think of the game as a movie we’ve might have done. We treat the game with the same respect. I can say that the villains are very much in canon.”
  • His so-called “supreme court” can suck it. Do you know who decides what is and is not Star Trek Canon? ME. Me and every other loyal Trekie and Treker who have dedicated countless hours, days, years and decades to making Star Trek successful.
  • I, speaking only for myself, encourage every loyal Star Trek fan to contact Paramount Pictures and let them know what we think about this B.S.

Geek Speak

• What the Hack is Going On????
  • HackerLeaks Goes Live (udg)
  • Fox News’ Twitter Account Hacked (udg)
  • The Original Hacker Manifesto (udg)

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Google+ Done Blowed Up the Twitters (btm)
  • Google+ launch was supposed to be limited
  • People invited were given unlimited invitations
  • After a brief but massive flood of invitations Wed night, invitations were shut down after the system was reportedly “over capacity” due to “insane demand”
  • Within a day of its launch it was blocked by China (I’m sure Natali was surprised)
  • Source code reveals future intent to provide Google+ Games
    • After Google invested over $100 Million in Zynga last year it stands to reason that games are on the way.
  • Mashable posted pics of what Google+ looks like for the unfortunate masses who didn’t get an invite
  • Android app already available, IOS coming (SM)
  • Google seems to have learned some valuable lessons from the Wave and Buzz fiascoes. Wave never had enough people or notifications and Buzz blew privacy to the wind. Plus seems to have made these a priority.

• Goggle’s Other Launch This Week (udg)
  • Google has had a busy week! You may remember last year they bought up Slide, best known for its 3rd-party FB aps and photo sharing software. Well, it’s reappeared this week as a new website – Prizes.org.
  • The idea is simple- let anyone create a contest for a problem they need solving. In return for the help of the community, you offer a prize/reward for solving that problem. The possibilities are limitless. Need a new logo? Stuck on what to say for an upcoming speech? Need your resume redone? Through Prizes.org you can get that help and the winner of your contest earns some cash as a reward for their expertise.
  • It takes a quick look at the Privacy Policy to reveal a slide.com email address, confirming this is a Google venture. Will someone pay for help with writing a speech instead of doing a few Google searches for “How to write a speech” or “Speeches for special occasions?” It looks like it.
  • People are already signing up and opening contests for things ranging from trip planning to company naming and best deals on a rental car to giving someone a makeover. Prizes ranging from $10-$50, with the $50 contests wanting detailed trip itineraries or complete holiday plans drawn up.
  • One thing missing from the site is any link between your Google account and your Prizes.org login. However, you can already link with your Facebook and Twitter accounts.
  • This isn’t the first time Google has attempted to offer a “pay for answers” service. Some of you will probably remember Google Answers which ran for over four years, but was closed down in 2006. With Answers you could pose any questions and offer a cash reward for the best answer. Prizes.org looks to be a more consumer-friendly version of the same service on first viewing.

• Google to Retire “Blogger” and “Picasa” Brand names (btm)
  • Mashable is reporting that Google is changing the names of some of their biggest non-Google branded services.
  • Picasa will now be “Google Photo” and Blogger will be “Google Blogs”
  • The change will be occurring in the coming weeks.
  • Expected to coincide with the public release of Google+ at the end of July

• GMail getting redesign, slowly (SM)(UDG)
  • Gmail is an incredibly powerful web client
  • Finally, they are looking to redesign… slowly
  • Google calendars will be getting a new look and feel
  • 2 new themes (dense and regular) to preview some of the changes (blech)
  • Anyone noticed some minor differences?
    • cc addition suggestions
    • list of emails that person has sent this week on details pane
  • (SM) Can they overcome everybody’s reticence for change?
  • (They’ve already incorporated G+ features into it for those of us w/ it and have created options sidebar when you are in an email to give you options available and more information about that email- udg)

• Google in Preliminary Talks to Buy Hulu (btm)
  • Hulu has begun meeting with potential buyers including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!
  • Hulu’s TV rights have drawn interest from Google and Yahoo! predominantly because popular TV programs on the service have attracted more than 600 advertisers.
  • Hulu expects to bring in over $500 million from advertisers and Hulu Plus subscriptions.

• California Passes Online Tax and Amazon Strikes Back (btm)
  • Federal Law allows states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes only if the seller has a physical presence in the state.
  • Most states require that their citizens pay taxes for online purchases but most people aren’t even aware of this and don’t
  • This gives Amazon and other online retailers a price advantage in many cases.
  • New California law, signed by Governor Jerry Brown last Wednesday, allows the state tax board to collect sales taxes from online retailers who have affiliates in state (in most cases blogs or personal web sites that push traffic to the retailers in exchange for a percentage or cut of the sale).
  • Amazon.com and Overstock.com reacted quickly and announced that they are severing ties with all California based affiliates in order to avoid paying the tax.
  • This may not be enough to avoid the tax as a second provision of the new law allows the state to tax companies if they have subsidiaries in the state, and Amazon has several.
  • California Retailers Association supports the new law claiming the Online retailers had “basically a 10% price advantage every day of the year”
  • Affiliates complain that the revenue they receive from the retailers make up a large portion of their incomes. Incomes on which they pay state taxes already. With this income loss the state will lose even more money.

• Man claiming half of facebook suffers setback (SM)(UDG)
  • New York man claims that Zuckerberg sold him half Facebook for $1000
  • At the time, Zuckerberg hadn’t even created site, still in dormitories
  • Claims to have email and documents to prove
  • Suffered setback as his high-power attorneys have resigned
  • Judge is forcing remand of evidence to Facebook
  • FB claims its a forgery and wants to prove it
  • Only time will tell whether he gets his 35 billion or not

• Facebook to Announce “Something Awesome” Wednesday (btm)
  • (At least they didn’t say it was going to be “magical”)
  • Could this possibly be in response to all the “buzz” about Google+
  • (I find great irony in the fact that the most popular person on Google+ is Mark Zuckerberg. I said it when we first talked about this early last fall- this is one thing that could possibly take a chunk outta FB- udg)
  • Sources are pretty much unanimous that it will be a video chat service powered by Skype.

• China Wants to Buy Facebook (udg)
  • According to the Business Insider news website, Beijing approached a fund that buys stock from former Facebook employees to see if it could assemble a stake large enough “to matter.”  Moreover, Citi bank is rumored to be trying to acquire as much as $1.2 billion of stock for two sovereign wealth funds, one from the Middle East and the other Chinese.  Business Insider reports a third source, from a “very influential” Silicon Valley investment bank, confirms that Citi is representing China.
  • While Business Insider tells us there is “little need” for concern about Chinese censors looking at the photos and postings of the 700 million people who trust Facebook with their personal online activity, you know I beg to differ.
  • Their points- China’s position won’t be large, they would be acquiring nonvoting stock and lastly, shareholders don’t get the right to look at what’s on the site.  Those are all valid points.
  • So what IS in it for China to drop that kind of cash?  Chinese leaders clearly view social media as a threat to their rule, especially after seeing its force-multiplying effect in the ongoing Arab Spring protests that have toppled governments.
  • China’s sovereign wealth fund, which is no more independent of the Communist Party than the Beijing municipal government, wants to buy a stake in the world’s most prominent social networking site because Chinese leaders want to control social media.
  • Zuckerberg visited China in December and is scheduled to return, perhaps in September, in his bid to access the world’s largest online community, 457 million at last count.
  • This is a dangerous combination. On one hand you’ve got the Chinese who are blatantly cocky in their own right. And then you’ve got a delusional Zuckerberg who “believes that Facebook can be an agent of change in China.”
  • Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is reportedly “wary about the compromises Facebook would have to make to do business there.”  If she loses her argument with Zuckerberg and Facebook enters China, the company will eventually be subject to demands to censor its sites, those both inside and outside China.  That’s apparently why the Chinese want to own a big stake in Facebook.  They are, in short, looking for control in the long run.  No other explanation is consistent with the Party’s other media and “educational” initiatives.
  • Dear Sheryl, I’ll help you come smack some sense into Zuckerberg if need be.

• WoW Now Free Up To Level 20 (udg)
  • In case you haven’t heard, Blizzard’s Rage of The Firelands WoW update brings with it the elimination of the 14-day trial in favor of a model that allows noobs to play up to level 20 before paying a subscription fee.
  • However, the World of Warcraft Starter Edition, as it is called, does have a few restrictions. As Gamespot notes:
    • …players will be able to amass just 10 gold, have their trade skills capped at 100, and will be unable to trade via the Auction House, mailbox, or player to player.
    • Further, Starter Edition players will not be able to access public chat channels, join a guild, invite players to a party, join parties with characters above level 20, use voice chat, transfer characters, or use Real ID features. Lastly, Blizzard will give preferential treatment to paying WoW subscribers when realms have queues.
  • On the plus side, if you decide to upgrade the core game plus The Burning Crusade expansion can now be had in a single package for a mere $20. Those who had previously purchased the original WoW will get a free copy.

• Unlimited MoviePass put on hold (SM)BTM
  • Covered previously on TPG
  • Pay $50 a month and get unlimited tickets to see movies
  • Sounds too good to be true, right?
  • Well not so fast…
  • All the theatres have denied access to these “season passes”
  • Company that set up the “beta” only worked with online ticket brokers
  • Did not clear it with theatres themselves
  • Frequent Flyer Rewards? Profit cuts to theatres?
  • Will this ever get back off the ground?

• Hello nD! (udg)
  • In case you’ve not yet heard- nD, brainchild of Robert Pelloni, creator of Bob’s Game, is a new indie handheld gaming device currently in prototyping phase. Robert and his team are all set to develop an indie handheld gaming console which will run a number of indie games. And from the prototype, it’s more powerful than a Nintendo DS.
  • Detailed Proposed Device Specifications
    • Screen resolution will be 320×240
    • The current prototype features a 400MHz ARM CPU, although this may change for the final hardware if these chips cannot be acquired in a large enough volume
    • nD will feature at least 16MB of RAM, but more likely 32MB
    • The nD uses a built in rechargeable battery pack and not AAA batteries. The battery life of the nD is TBD
    • Features a 2.4 inch backlit LCD display with a resolution of 320×240 and capable of displaying 16 bit color
    • Wi-Fi for local multiplayer and possibly online multiplayer
    • Doesn’t feature any kind of SD storage. However, the nD does feature internal memory for game storage. Currently 2GB is expected to be the amount for the base model
    • In the future, developers may choose to create their own custom designed nD to ship with their game

• More and more games are being approved for the device and the list is increasing. Current games include Bob’s Game of course, a port of DOOM (2D) which will allow multiplayer deathmatch game through wifi. A list of all the games can be found here.
• Oh and did I mention it’s only going to cost $10? Robert Pelloni has a sketchy past with  antics, gimmicks and viral marketing tactics so there are many skeptics, But, I think we’re all keeping our toes crossed this turns out to be the real deal.

• Spam is Down 82% Since This Time Last Year (btm)
  • Spam hit it’s all time high last July with an estimated 230 BILLION spam messages per day
  • Now declined to “only” 39.2 billion
  • Due in part to several factors working together to make spam less profitable for criminals.
  • September 2010 Spamit announced it was closing down due to “numerous negative events”. This led to a drop of almost 100 billion spams per day.
  • December 2010 the largest botnet of the time, Rustock, stopped sending spam. At the time they were sending approx. 47.5% of all spam.
  • Resumed operations in January 2011 but finally completely shut down in March due to concerted efforts from law enforcement officials and industry.
  • Decrease of over all spam may be due to increased efforts and investigations into the underbelly of the spam community.

• Great Score Eliminates China’s Tech Mineral Stronghold (udg)
  • In one of my past rants on China, I covered concern over the fact that China had a HUGE stronghold on “rare earth” minerals that are absolutely crucial for making all the little lovely microchips that run iPads and flat screen TVs and other electronic devices we love so much.
  • Well, we can all hug Japan now. Thanks to them, scientists have found a score of these minerals on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that could pretty much multiply the known supply on land by 1,000 times.
  • The timing could not be more awesome on this with China holding the vast majority of the global supply of these essential minerals and claiming it has used 97% of its share and threatening export blockages.
  • Large deposits of so-called “rare earth” minerals crucial for manufacturing electronic devices like iPads and flat-screen TVs have been discovered on the ocean floor by Japan.
  • “The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square km (0.4 sq mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption,” Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, said in the report, according to The Guardian.
  • The minerals were discovered in sea mud at 3,500 to 6,000 meters below the surface of the sea in 78 locations, with one-third of sites displaying rare earth content. Scientists estimate that there are 80 to 100 billion tons of the minerals under the sea. Right now, 110 million tons have been found on land.
  • The deposits are located in international waters, according to reports. Mining will take place “east and west of Hawaii, as well as east of Tahiti in French Polynesia,” Reuters reports.
  • To collect these minerals, extraction pumps will pull mud up from the sea floor.
  • “Sea mud can be brought up to ships and we can extract rare earths right there using simple acid leaching,” Kato said. “Using diluted acid, the process is fast, and within a few hours we can extract 80-90% of rare earths from the mud.”

Intarweb Goldmine

• That Smooch Is Gonna Cost Ya (udg)
  • A Bible-waving preacher protesting at a gay pride event in North Carolina turned the other cheek – and got kissed on it by a 74-year-old female gay rights supporter. And now he’s suing her for simple assault.
  • Joan Parker admits she kissed a preacher on the cheek at the event, proclaimed by the Salisbury mayor as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Day.
  • “He was just waving his arms and has a Bible in one hand, up and down, and screaming at the top of his lungs, `sodomites’ and `you’re going to hell,’” Parker said in a phone interview. “I thought he needed a hug. So I gave him a hug.”
  • He described the encounter this way: “She ran her arms all the way around me and pulled me toward her.” As he held his Bible in one hand, he stuck both arms in the air and turned toward a police officer standing nearby who witnessed the exchange, he said.
  • Belcher contends the kiss “was just one of many attempts to silence the preaching to those in need of salvation who practice a death style that they call a lifestyle.”
  • Parker is due back in court Sept. 12. Simple assault is a misdemeanor and could bring a sentence of up to 30 days of community service for a first-time offender.

• Monkey Steals Camera and Takes Facebook Photos (btm)
  • Maybe not actual Facebook photos, these actually look better than some of the ones I’ve seen.
  • Award winning photographer, David Slater, was visiting a national park in Indonesia.
  • One of the macaques must have knocked over the camera which had been set up and set it off.
  • The monkey seemed to be fascinated by it’s reflection in the lens and proceeded to take several really good self portraits.
  • The macaques had been following Mr. Slater’s group for a few days during his visit to the park and seemed to be curious about the human visitors.

• Prisoners Have Rights Too, Even the Dumb Ones (udg)
  • A Michigan jail inmate says he’s being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. He’s so upset that he even hand wrote a lawsuit. And why is 21 yo Kyle Richards under the impression his civil rights are being violated at the Macomb County Jail? Well lack of porn of course.
  • Richards says denying his request for erotic material subjects him to a “poor standard of living” and “sexual and sensory deprivation.”
  • The Michigan Department of Corrections tells The Detroit News that prisons allow some pornographic material, though it’s banned at the jail. The American Civil Liberties Union says prisons have a lot of leeway.
  • What landed our sexually frustrated friend in jail in the first place? Richards was charged with bank robbery after police followed a trail of snowy footprints and dropped money to his apartment from a bank robbery scene in January in Fraser, north of Detroit. Richards plead guilty. Sentencing is Aug. 2.

• Ain’t No Thang But a Chicken Wing, and a 4 Car Pileup (udg)
  • A COP caused a four car pile-up after doing an emergency stop. What did this hardened criminal do? He threw a CHICKEN BONE.
  • Yup, Andrew Varciana, 22, flipped the KFC scrap at his pals who were in a busy intersection in Swensea.
  • A detective in an unmarked police car saw him and suddenly braked — sending four cars ploughing into the back of each other causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
  • One ended up on the roof of another in the pile-up which caused thousands of pounds in damage and left three people with minor injuries.
  • Stunned Varciana then found himself blamed for the shunt and charged with breaching public order.
  • Ummm… yeah, he wasn’t even in a car. This all went down on some sidewalks.

Extra Links

• IBM Develops Instantaneous Memory (btm)
  • 100x Faster than Flash Memory

• Voltron Says “Happy 4th of July”?

• 9 Geeky Summer Projects

• Gollum singing “I will survive”

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

Sponsors

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Get Shinylines in Gold Sponsors

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  • I’m almost giggly with anticipation!!
  • Check out shop.shinylines.com for more product -OR-
  • Send darthmolen@gmail.com an email saying you want this ring. If there’s enough interest, we are going to make this available to the public

The Power Geeks #107

We are LIVE on Ustream.  Lulzsec disbands, Google unveils how they plan to social network, and Ding, Dong, a Star Wars product is dead

Intro Ben
Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• Ever Want To Be On Your Own Trading Card? (udg)
  • The awesome folks over at Meet Meme reached out to me recently and OMG I am LOVING the cards they made me!!!
• ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com (udg)
  • With all the hacks going on lately, wouldn’t it be nice if you had one place to go to see if your information has been compromised? Well, we do! It’s ShouldIChangeMyPassword.com and it works by making use of a number of databases that have been released to the public by Hackers. No passwords are stored by the site and it is strictly being made available as a public service.

• Boutonnieres from a Galaxy Far, Far Away (udg)

• Super Mario Beatbox (udg)
  • Trust me- it’s hella awesome and once again proof of the zillion reasons I love the Japanese.

• Ready for Transformers: Bark at the Moon? How About Your Data? (btm)

• • From themed flash drive maker Mimoco
  • Optimus Prime and Megatron are available in 2, 4, 8 and 16GB models
  • Prices range from $20 to $60 depending on size.
  • Includes Screensavers, Comics, Icons and Images.
  • USB 2.0

• DC Relaunch, Hipster Style (btm)
  • As DC Comics remake and relaunch their comic universe lot’s of heroes are getting a new look
  • deviantArt user “CallMePro” has put together a catalog of his vision of the costume redesigns, Hipster style.

• Ditch your Remote (SM) (accessory not included)

• Hackintosh Mini for less than $600 (SM)

• USB Powered Butt Cooler (SM)

Gold Sponsors:

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• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Happy Pandas, or Unicorn Treats, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Team Fortress 2 Now Free-To-Play Forevvvver! (udg)

• • Valve has decided to introduce the free-to-play model for its very popular team-based first-person shooter Team Fortress 2.
  • Right now, you can hop on your mac or PC, load up Steam, download the game and start playing free and the game play is exactly the same as the paid version. Free users will also receive all the updates and downloadable content, but there are some differences.
  • So what’s different? Free accounts get 50 slots in their backpack, standard items, limited blueprints, can receive items and gifts only. There’s a couple of unique extras too like a Proof of Purchase hat to wear and if you help out someone with a free account a lot and they upgrade to premium you get a free wearable item.
  • You can still update to a premium version. All you have to do is purchase something in-game at the Mann Co. store.

• The Real Muppets Trailer (SM)

• DVD Movie Releases (4th wk June)
  • LOTR: EE on BLU-RAY!!! (sm) ‘nuff said!
  • Sucker Punch: Director’s Cut
  • Max Manus: Man of War – Dutch Underground Pulp war movie

Entertainment Geekly (new feature)

• R.I.P.D Gets a Release Date (udg)
  • Looks like the comic book movies are going to keep coming for Ryan Reynolds. Universal Pictures has announced a June 28, 2013 release date for R.I.P.D., an adaptation of the Dark Horse Comics series and will star Reynolds along side Jeff Bridges. It follows dead police officer, Nick Cruz, (played by Reynolds) that joins the supernatural “Rest In Peace Department” in order to investigate his own murder. Bridges plays the role of Roy, a veteran on the undead police force.
  • So what does this mean for the other comic book movie that Reynolds is attached to start in- the “Deadpool” solo movies spinning out of his debut as the character in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”? I’m not sure, but I am glad to see Hollywood branching out more in the comic department without bastardizing the classics.

• Starz to Premier “Torchwood: Miracle Day” July 8, 2011 (btm)
  • Popular BBC One series, often called Doctor Who for grown-ups is coming to America.
  • Show’s original creator, writer/producer Russell T Davies will serve as Executive Producer.
  • 10 part series features original  Torchwood stars John Barrowman and Eve Myles along with Mekhi Phifer, Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose.
  • Story explores what happens when no one on Earth dies. They still age, get sick and get hurt, but no one dies.

• WW Movie Talk That Makes Me GIDDY!?! (udg)
  • Nicolas Refn, director of Bronson and Valhalla Rising, has spoken about his perfect Wonder Woman in the shape of Christina Hendricks. Interviewed at the premere of his latest film, Drive, Nicolas was adamant that if he is chosen to chair the Wonder Woman feature, currently in development at Warner Brothers, he’d pick the Mad Men actress.
  • Speaking about Christina – who Nicolas cast alongside Ryan Gosling in Drive – he told NY Magazine, “If I ever get to do it, she’s going to be it.” He also told the BBC last year that helming Wonder Woman was a lifelong ambition for him, “It’s probably something that, to me, would be not just a satisfaction, but almost a catharsis”, adding, “I was born to make it.”
  • As for Hendricks, the dream of playingWonder Woman has been on her mind for over a year now. Last year she told US chat show host Rachel Ray “I’ve been wanting to wear that outfit my whole life … I had Underoos. I had Wonder Woman Underoos!”
  • Of course nothing is even remotely set in stone in regards to WW making the leap to the big-screen but I absoeffinglutely LOVE this choice.

Geek Speak

• Are Fake Geeks Dooming Real Ones?
  • “In the wake of the Best Buy ‘geek’ trademarking and Miss USA calling herself ‘a huge history geek,’ writer (and self-proclaimed geek) Eryn Green has an interesting piece for Esquire on how so-called ‘geek chic’ is pervading the culture so much that no one appreciates an actual geek anymore. From the article: ‘The difference between brains and beauty is that you’re more or less born into good looks — entitled, if you will. Intelligence? That takes work. If the hallmark of real geekiness — of America — is determination, then we seem too determined to have an entitlement problem.’”

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• JK Rowling Quoth Pottermore(udg)
  • Fans of J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series waited expectantly for the announcement the best-selling author promised to make last Thursday.
  • The big announcement turned out to be Pottermore. She describes it as an online website for fans that will be “an online reading experience unlike any other.”
  • Rowling said this is her way of thanking her fans. “Harry’s fans remain as enthusiastic and inventive as ever,” she said in the video. “So I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you, because no author could ask for a more wonderful and diverse and loyal readership.”
  • According to Rowling, the “Harry Potter”story will be available on Pottermore, but it will be built and shaped by the readers. Rowling also said that she plans on sharing additional information that she has “been hoarding for years about the world of Harry Potter.” The website will also be the exclusive place to buy digital audio books and e-books of the “Harry Potter” series.
  • “The digital generation will be able to enjoy a safe, unique online reading experience built around the ‘Harry Potter’ books,” Rowling said in the video. The description of it all is very vague. I’m sure Potter fans will want to smack me but- wasn’t this series supposed to end? This skirts a dangerously fine line of supporting fans and continuing on so you can extract money from them long after you’ve “ended” your series.
  • The Pottermore website will not open officially until October, but Rowling said that a lucky few can enter the site early and help develop it. “Just follow the owl,” she said. Fans can return to the website on July 31 to find out how to enter the site early.

• HBO GO Showing Growth (SM)
  • HBO strikes another blow against Netflix
  • 3 million downloads strong (10% of the HBO userbase)
  • Not Hulu Plus, all HBO’s vault is available for watching
  • Soprano’s, The Wire, Rome, the Pacific, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, Entourage
  • Here’s the catch. You must have cable and subscribe to HBO
  • (SM) Boo!!

• Apple Awarded Patent for Multitouch (btm)
  • US Patent and Trademark Office recently awarded Apple U.S. Patent #7,966,578 for a “portable multifunction device, method and graphical user interface for translating and displaying content.”
  • Patent originally filed December of 2007
  • iPhone revolutionized smart-phone design and use with the first iPhone
  • Spawned many copycats since it’s launch
  • Critics say that the awarded patent is too broad in it’s scope and unless it is invalidated or made more narrow it will hamper innovation until 2027.
  • According to Patent Attorney Spyros J. Lazaris, “It could cover any mobile device with a screen capable of accessing the web and showing web pages, including tablet computers and smartphones.”
  • How Apple plans to implement this new patent remains to be seen but in the past Apple has aggressively protected patents of their interfaces.

• Star Wars Galaxies is Dead, Long Live the Old Republic (udg)
  • LucasArts and Sony ONline Entertainment has announced, effective Dec. 15th, they will shut down Star Wars Galaxies.
  • In a note on the game’s support forum, the companies stated “The shutdown of SWG is a very difficult decision, but SOE and LucasArts have mutually agreed that the end of 2011 is the appropriate time to end the game.” Besides the MMO, the closure will also affect the Trading Card Game.
  • “During the last week that SWG is available…we’re going to end with a bang and we want the final chapter of the galaxy to be written in part by the dedicated and passionate SWG community.  Details will be announced at a later date,” the companies said.
  • Meanwhile, SWG subscribers in good standing will be able to play several other SOE MMO PC Games at the subscriber level at no extra cost. Between Oct 15 & Dec 15th, those users will have access to Free Realms, Star Wars; Clone Wars Adventures, EverQuest, EverQuest II and DC Universe Online via the Star Wars Galaxies web site.
  • Effective June 24th though 3, 6 & 12 month subscription packs, as well as the TCG store were turned off. Sept 15 starts cease of the sale of the Trading Card game and the SWG MMO. Billing will be turned off Oct 15th and all free game trials will end Dec. 31st.

• Lulzsec Disbands (SM)
  • Lulzsec, group famous for hacking the CIA, Senate, Nintendo, Sony, and others
  • Surprisingly announced their disbanding after a short news garnering life
  • Claim that the plan was to only operate for 50 days
  • Wanted to bring back the AntiSec movement – anti-disclosure of exploits
  • (what attacking gov’t and corporate websites do for this cause, who knows)
  • As a parting shot,  AT&T, AOL, Disney, Universal, EMI and the FBI were all hacked
  • Anonymous claims they carry the torch, and hack some more

• US Navy Buys 59,000 Microchips with Chinese Backdoors (btm)
  • Last year the Navy bought 59k Microchips for use in everything from missiles to transponders.
  • Turns out the chips were counterfeits from China
  • Wired reported that not only were they fake chips, they had built-in back doors that would allow them to be remotely shutdown at anytime.
  • Trojan circuits that are built in during the production process are almost impossible to detect.
  • The danger is from US contractors attempting to save a buck by using cheaper, foreign made chips.
  • The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) is now looking for methods to check chips for these Trojan circuits.

• Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D Game Saves Can NOT Be Deleted (udg)
  • As far as we know, the 3DS is the 1st Nintendo portable gaming unit to use region protection. Turns out it’s also the first machine to get a game with permanent save games on a cartridge.
  • Capcom has decided to make the save games on Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D permanent. In other words, as soon as you start playing, the cartridge is gonna fill up with your saves that can’t ever be deleted. Why the heck would they do this? Well, to stop you from selling it once you’ve beaten it or gotten bored with it.
  • Yeah, Capcom may think themselves clever- but it’s just going to piss off gamers. Selling it aside, eventually it’s going to run out of save game space which will render it useless. And let’s face it, selling your games is not pretty much a common thing and something retailers rely upon. This could be the start of a very slippery and frustrating slope. Hopefully Capcom will learn quick and no other developers will jump aboard this trend.

• Shareable Open-Source Internet in Afghanistan (SM)
  • Many postulate that corporate-controlled Internet will never be “free”
  • FabFi has put their money where their mouth is
  • Using common building materials and off-the-shelf electronics, they have built an open-source system to transmit wireless signals across MILES!
  • (SM)and here I have a problem with a few feet
  • Their longest link? 2.41 miles to Jalalabad in Afghanistan @ 11.5 Mbps (22 Mbps is normal)
  • Total cost for one single sharing node? $60 worth of material….

• FINALLY!!! Video Games Ruled Free Speech (udg)
  • Gamer and Gamerettes, the Supreme Court has FINALLY ruled 7-2 that video games are indeed a form of free speech and therefore protected by the first amendment. You may remember this whole mes started all the way back in 2005 when California passed a law prohibiting the sale of mature-rated video games to minors under penalty of a $1,000 fine. Protesting ensued and this worked it’s way all they way up to the Supreme Court.
  • To quote their decision: “Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.  California’s claim that ‘interactive’ video games present special problems, in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its out-come is unpersuasive.”
  • While this is certainly a symbolic victory for us gamers and geeks everywhere, you’re still going to have to show your ID before purchasing mature-rated games because restricting the sale to minors is both a legal and extremely pervasive store policy. But, it is now impossible for legislation involving video game bans to bubble up from the state-level since this decision is federal and overarching.
  • So, go forth and game. Game happily and game proudly.

• Google Unveils Google Plus (btm)
  • We all saw the “Google +1” buttons that started showing up a few weeks ago
  • Today Google unveiled it’s new Social Networking project “Google Plus”
  • So far only a lucky few have been invited to participate
  • And so far it looks pretty much like every other Facebook clone.
  • There’s an interactive tour available.
  • Tour highlights the many ways you’ll be able to interact with your friends
    • Circles, hangouts, instant uploads, sparks and huddle
    • Each grouping allows for different levels of access to information and levels of privacy.
  • Will the search giant be competition to Facebook?
  • By addressing sharing and privacy from the start will unhappy Facebook users make the switch?
  • Will Billy ever tell Cindy he knows about her affair with Josh? Wait, wrong show.

• Canadian Nerds Rejoice, Toronto is Getting a Star Trek Day (udg)
  • This past May the 4th, Toronto got it’s first Star Wars Day. It was organized by collective of local nerds and combined costume contests, trivia and a lot of sniping about the prequel trilogy.
  • And when you have a Star Wars Day, you know there will be Trekkies to rally for their own day too. So, Sally Christensen, a self-identified writer, crocheter and all-around nerd got together with other locals and organized a committee for Star Trek Day Toronto.
  • So, our dear Canadian friends- mark your calendars for October 2, 2011. Yeah, unlike the May the 4th be with you wit of Star Wars Day, there doesn’t seem to be any significance to the date. Well unless 10.2.11 was the stardate when dilithium was first discovered or something.
  • The group has assembled, Avengers-style, as Nerd Mafia, a name that is just way too awesome. Star Trek Day Toronto will be the first major event hosted by this mafia of Toronto’s dork elite. And it’s already shaping up to be far more expansive than Star Wars Day.
  • Christensen says that in addition to the usual cosplay and trivia games, Star Trek Day will also include some screenings. The films haven’t been picked, but she assured us that fan favorite and series highpoint Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan will almost certainly be one of them. And if that’s not enough to crank you up to Warp Six, the Nerd Mafia’s also plotting for live music and a Star Trek–themed burlesque show. Heck yeah!
  • So, there you have it. Toronto is getting a Star Trek Day. Want to stay up to date on the deets? Follow Star Trek Day on the Twitters at @StarTrekDayTO and Nerd Mafia at @TONerdMafia.

• Would Unlimited Movies at One Price Get You Back to Theaters? (btm)
  • San Francisco startup “MoviePass” is hoping it does
  • For $50 per month you’ll get to see unlimited movies in the theater
  • Currently in private beta in the San Francisco Bay Area
  • Hopes to use the Netflix model to get people back to theaters
  • Uses geo-aware HTML5 web app users buy tickets day of the show and app gives you a redemption code to get tickets from kiosk or counter.
  • Theater must be part of major online ticketing services.
  • Few rules
    • Limited to one movie per day
    • You can only see a movie one time
    • You can’t transfer tickets to someone else
    • 3D and IMAX movies will cost an additional $3

Intarweb Goldmine

• RageGage Allows You to Smack Facebook Friends (btm)
  • We all know about the Facebook Like button, but what do you do with all those annoying “friends” who constantly post junk as their status updates?
  • RageGage, LLC has the answer, the RageGage.
  • Connect via USB to your computer and select a friend to smack
  • The nearly unbreakable device then transfers your rage via the RageGage Connect application to Facebook and provides a virtual beatdown to your “friend”.
  • Also allows users to update their “Rage Level” on Facebook by smashing the RageGage and customize how their RageLevels appear on Facebook.

• How Far Would You Go To Avoid Jail? (udg)
  • Mexican prosecutors say Aaron Vera Morales, wanted for sealing $200,000 from the government changed his sex to avoid arrest. Yup, according to a statement form The Attorney General’s office he “Had plastic surgery in an effort to evade justice, to change his identity from a man to a woman.”
  • When finally caught, Morales was carrying identification that said he was a woman. Initially it was unknown whether he had undergone gender reassignment surgery or had just changed his appearance. Turns out, he went all the way on this one. This definitely takes going on the lam to a whole new level

• Sell Weed on Facebook! (btm)
  • As a tie-in to the popular Showtime series “Weeds” the “Weeds Social Club” launched in closed beta this week.
  • Players tasked with raising money to save their house by selling pot.
  • The game will not actually show you how to grow pot, but features a time clock tracking growing and selling.
  • Players will face run-ins with the police, organized crime and taxes
  • Other popular TV series have also featured Facebook games. Gossip Girl launched a game in January and Spartacus featured a game at it’s launch as well..

• Not Your Average “Construction Ahead” Sign (udg)
  • The zombie menace has once again found its way onto a highway sign.
  • After pranksters switched the message on an electronic road sign, motorists in northern Kentucky were warned this week to watch for zombies along the Interstate 71-75 corridor.
  • The usual message about upcoming roadwork was changed to: “Nightly lane closures, zombies ahead.”
  • Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokeswoman Nancy Wood said the Transportation Cabinet learned about the new message midmorning Thursday and turned it off until it can be fixed. Wood said officials are not amused by the prank.
  • The gag was hardly original. There was a spate of such pranks in 2009 in Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Illinois and Texas. Last March, someone posted a zombie warning on a highway sign in South Carolina. Original or not, it’ll definitely make you smile as you’re stuck in traffic.

• PETZ – People for the Ethical Treatment of Zombies (btm)
  • Have we already discussed this?
  • Encourages people to “Vote Yes on Z!” and show that California supports basic rights for the unnaturally born.
  • Describes proper Zombie care
  • Lists companies that test on Zombies

• Very, Very,Very Happy Bunnies (udg)
  • Police in Brandenburg who discovered a large plot of cannabis called on the neighbouring house only to find an 84-year-old woman who had been feeding her rabbits with the plants.
  • “The rabbits really like it,” the woman told officers who called on her in the village of Golzow near Belzig, according to Saturday’s Tagesspiegel.
  • A police officer had seen the healthy, metre-high plants from the road while on his way to work and told his colleagues, who visited the plot’s owner – the elderly woman.
  • She told them that she had not grown the plants herself, but that they had simply started growing there, and had proven to be excellent rabbit food. Not only did the rabbits love eating the plants, they grew back very quickly after she cut them down, she told the investigating officers.
  • A spokesman for the Brandenburg police said her explanation had sounded plausible, but the officers could not leave her with the plants, rather cut them all down and took them to the forensics laboratory for testing.
  • The three large plastic sacks of weed will now be tested to determine the level of THC – the psycho-active ingredient in cannabis – they contain. There was no official comment on what the elderly woman was expected to feed her rabbits with now.

• Extra Links

• Hackers School DEFCON Kids (udg)
• Good Robert Kirkman Q&A (udg)
• The Original AT-AT (udg)
• Pope Sends First Tweet (btm)

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
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• And Become a Fan

We are LIVE on Ustream. Tonight we talk fuzzy unicorns, some trouble in game land, Pentagon declares war on the Internet, and Macintosh finally gets malware

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

• Retro DC and Marvel T-Shirts (btm)

• Sushi Notepads (btm)

• Doom Ported to Web (udg)
  • Play here

• The Bodyguard (udg)
  • The BodyGuard, designed by cameraman David Brown, is an armored glove equipped with a high voltage stun gun, laser pointer for aiming, video camera and flashlight. The glove weighs less than three pounds, is made of breathable material and has a hard, protective shell that extends up the arm. The stun is generated by four electrodes on the wrist-area of the glove, prepped by a pull pin, and is activated by a button on the palm, with similar buttons activating the laser pointer, flashlight and video camera.
  • Brown developed the prototype for the BodyGuard in 48 hours, by using a medical arm brace as a base, attaching a stun gun and a fire-alarm button from Home Depot. It took Brown seven years and thirty prototypes to finish his final demo model.

• Mr. Toots Unlocked in  Red Faction: Armageddon (SM)
  • More Mr. Toots! ahahah
  • Its a plush unicorn, your character holds backwards, that craps rainbows and blows things up

• George Lucas Shot First

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Deals of the Week / New Releases

• New Green Lantern Game (release June 7) might not suck (btm)
  • First game to star the Green Lantern ties in with the upcoming movie
  • Available for Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Xbox 360
  • Game will feature 3D graphics on the 3DS and also the PS3  and Xbox 360
  • PS3 and Xbox 360 will achieve 3D through anaglyphic 3D with the included 3D glasses or stereoscopic 3D on native 3DTVs.
  • Gameplay screenshots and videos look impressive, but we’ve all been fooled by movie tie-in games in the past.

• New Release Movies

Movie Minute (new feature)

• Peter Jackson confirms Orlando Bloom is returning for The Hobbit (btm)
  • Saying via his Facebook page, “Ten years ago, Orlando Bloom created an iconic character with his portrayal of Legolas. I’m excited to announce today that we’ll be revisiting Middle Earth with him once more. I’m thrilled to be working with Orlando again. Funny thing is, I look older — and he doesn’t! I guess that’s why he makes such a wonderful elf.”

• Also in Hobbit News, Titles and Release Dates Announced (btm)
  • ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ opens December 14, 2012
  • ‘The Hobbit: There and Back Again’ opens December 13, 2013
  • Possibly following up with “The Hobbit: We Might Be Able to Squeeze One More Out” opening December 12, 2014

• X-Men Logo fills the LA Skies (btm)
  • People across Southern California have witnessed strange goings on in the skies overhead
  • In a unique advertising campaign for the new X-men movie, studios have hired sky writers to put the X-Man logo in the clouds.
  • Initial reports showed up in tweets and YouTube videos from Los Angeles but soon reports from San Diego and points in between started showing up.

• Star Wars Live Action Update
  • Canon re-release: Still 3D, Still Post Process, Nothing Ground Breaking
  • Live Action:
    • 50 hours on the shelf
    • not economic enough
    • Wants to make it like a feature film for a 10th of the cost
    • Hoping to revolutionize how feature films are budgeted (250 – 350 million turned to $50 million)

Geek Speak

• What summer blockbuster are you looking forward too?
  • Thor (already released)
  • Cowboys & Aliens
  • Green Lantern
  • Captain America
  • X-Men: First Class
  • Harry Potter
  • Rise of the Planet Apes
  • Super 8

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Iran Plans on Unplugging the Intarwebs (udg)
  • So, Iran has come up with a way to fully censor its internet. Yup, it’s going completely prevent access to the Intarwebs and create it’s own national Internet to take its place.  According to their telecommunications chief, in two years all Iranians will be “forced to use a state-censored, fully-internal Internet.” He suspects 60% Iran’s homes and businesses will switch sooner than the estimated 2 years. Iran believes this is a move toward “upholding Islamic moral values” but, with it taking very little to access it, can they actually block the Internet?
  • Google may has a sad too because the current 11% who do not have access to the Internet at all will be forced to use an alternative called “Ya Hagh” as well as a non-Mircosoft operating system.   So far, the plan is just that — a plan — but considering Iran has already created and implement their own alternative to Google, it would seem the more difficult obstacle to overcome would be to cut off rogue Internet users, rather than actually create their own national Internet.

• Macintosh Malware Gets Possibly Worser (btm)
  • For many years Macs users  have bragged about the lack of viruses and malware affecting them.
  • Recently a fake Anti-virus called MacDefender spread like wildfire in the Mac community
  • The malware hides in webpages. When activated it produces an animation declaring that viruses have been detected on your computer (old trick)
  • If you have “open safe files after downloading” option checked MacDefender begins installing automatically.
  • Tricks users into giving their credit card information to “purchase” fake software to remove the detected viruses (which don’t exist)
  • This week Apple finally released a security update to address the issue after denying it was a problem for weeks. (just over 2 MB)
  • Updates detects and deletes the malware which allegedly arrived on your computer via poisoned Google image files.
  • While this update addresses the current problem, experts are advising users to be alert as this may be the beginning of the end of Macintosh’s relative safety.

• Google Launching +1 service tomorrow (SM)
  • In a bit of “me 2”, Google unveils a button that works similar to “like”
  • Developers can place the +1 button to show their support for the site
  • Still unclear how this will get eyes on sites with no social network
  • Probably a “lateral move” with Bing! getting some elevation from facebook likes

• Chinese Prisoners Learn to Farm (udg)
  • I’m all for putting prisoners to work, but not exactly the way China seems to have in mind. Go figure. A Chinese man who goes by the pseudonym of Liu Dali had a little chat with The Guardian and revealed how he spent his time in a North-East China prison after being imprisoned for “illegally petitioning” the Chinese govt regarding Corruption in his hometown. Oh and Dali is an ex-prison guard himself.  Besides what you’d expect for prison labor- breaking rocks and “whittling chopsticks and toothpicks from planks of wood,” they got to do some gaming. Yup, the guards made him and other convicts play massively multiplayer gamesin 12 hour shifts in the interest of selling the gold online.
  • Dali alleges that between 300 prisoners working in tandem the guards bragged they could earn some 5,000-6,000 RMB (around $823) each day.
  • “If I couldn’t complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things.”
  • While the Chinese govt banned the practice of gold farming in 2009 and Dali’s imprisonment took place before that, he is doubtful the process has stopped.  You know I’ll be the first to agree with him on that.

• Disney Withdraws Trademark application (btm)
  • Two days after Navy SEALs killed bin Laden the Disney Corp. filled a trademark application for the SEAL Team 6 name and logo.
  • The Navy, which already held the Trademark on “SEALs” filled their own trademark request for “SEAL Team and Navy SEALs”
  • Disney withdrew their request but says their original application was misunderstood.
  • They were considering a show about the elite squad similar to other military based shows like JAG or NCIS.
  • Studios have previously applied for trademarks on names like JAG and NCIS without much attention. It seems the timing on this one appeared to be in poor taste.

• Apple Releasing iCloud (SM)
  • Apple plans to put out a cloud service similar to amazon and google
  • Been rumored since Apple bought the icloud.com domain in April
  • Many are speculating on a streaming music service (which has been rumored awhile)
  • Some are wondering about drop box-like functionality (would go well with their IPads not having a lot of disc space or drives)
  • Films and TV still a possibility for the iCloud – Working on various TV and film possibilities.

• Pentagon Declares Cyber Attacks Constitute Act of War (udg)
  • If you tuned in last week, we talked about the reality of cyber warfare threats. In a move that put a very big smile on my face, the US Dept. of Defense has ruled that attacks on computer networks and sabotage of information systems that stem from other countries officially constitute an act of war and as such can be responded to with traditional military force.
  • The Pentagon’s decision provides a physical threat against nations in a world where virtual threats and attacks are becoming more and more common. It also gives the US military more options to retaliate against simply defending against information attacks and trying to wage our own.
  • Now, taking down Google is not likely going to lead to an attack, but any attempt to sabotage or shut down nuclear reactors or power grids are examples of things that will get your ass handed to you right quick.
  • The Pentagon’s report  is the first official document on cyber strategy and includes references to attacks on the Pentagon’s computer networks, as well as a reference to the Stuxnet computer worm that targeted nuclear power systems in Iran – a worm that many analysts believe is complicated and enough that only a nation would have had the resources to develop and inject it.
  • The report is also without controversy both inside and out the Military.  Some question whether or not the US can ever have an absolute certainty to where an attack originated, or even enough to start launching missiles. Other defense analysts have pointed to the concept of “equivalence,” meaning an attack should be met with equal but overwhelming force, as a way to determine how broad a retaliatory strike should be in response to a cyber attack.
  • Regardless, the Pentagon’s statement represents two major shifts in US military thinking when it comes to information warfare: first that the Pentagon recognizes they’ve been slow to build a comprehensive information security posture to protect American military and civilian networks, and second, that the Department of Defense is taking threats and attacks against American information security very seriously.
  • It’s about flipping time.

• TSA Not Just Happy With Their Hands in Your Shorts (btm)
  • Now they want to keep your data for 15 years!
  • New draft agreement between the US and EU allows the Department of Homeland security to keep the private data that passengers provide to airlines.
  • Credit card details, phone numbers, and home addresses would be kept for 15 years and analysed by automated data-mining and profiling programs.
  • Agreement is requesting that airlines provide this passenger information at least 96 hours in advance of flights so that names can be checked against terror watch lists.
  • European privacy advocates are up in arms about the agreement and say that “blanket retention of personal data for five or ten years is a huge infringement of data protection principles.”
  • Databases get hacked and personal data is stolen often.
  • Sony’s Playstation Network had no comment.

• SC2 XPack info released (Finally) (SM)
  • Will be called “Heart of the Swarm” and will be zerg based
  • Kerrigan makes her debut in the new franchise
  • player-played hero character throughout the campaign, with her own tech tree
  • Think in power proportions, she’ll be powerful enough to take on many,many units

• The shift is self-described at “Huge”. Think more defense of the ancients play-type than total RTS…

• • Wings of Liberty was more of a “multiplayer trainer” than a well executed single player experience
  • No releases on what units will make their way into multiplayer yet but they’re promised

• Call of Duty Elite (udg)
  • After rumors galore, Activision Blizzard has finally announced Call of Duty Elite- basically a social network for Call of Duty players. Beta will launch this summer with last November’s Call of Duty: Black Ops and the full service will be integrated with Call of Duty’s next installment, Modern Warfare 3. No price announced  yet, but Activision did mention they are projecting it to be less than “fees for comparable online entertainment services.”
  • What is that money going to get you?  Basic social networking features, the ability to make groups and clans, participate in tournaments, stat-tracking, and the ability to upload videos and screenshots and have users vote on which they feel are the best. Not exactly worth a monthly subscription fee? It also offers in-depth stat-tracking, such as heat maps detailing where the player gets shot, the ability to review the minute-by-minute progression of a match, as well as aggregate data, like which weapons were used to obtain the most kills on a certain map and where the most deaths occur on a map. It is also planned to allow subscribers access to free map packs that non-subscribers would have to purchase separately. So, still not exactly worth its monthly subscription fee, unless you take your yearly-iterated war gaming very seriously. Luckily for Call of Duty gamers who don’t exactly want to add a Call of Duty subscription to their monthly budget, Activision stated that the base game will still ship with regular multiplayer functionality that will not cost a monthly fee.
  • Check out the notes for the official trailer.

• Twitter buys TweetDeck? (btm)
  • Twitter has reportedly bought London based TweetDeck for $40 million.
  • TweetDeck is the popular application used to organise and more easily read your Tweet-Stream and Facebook updates among others.
  • The 15 employee start up will continue to work from London.
  • No major changes are expected in the short term for the application which is currently available for desktop computers and mobile devices.

• Interplay in doubt, Fallout MMO on the rocks (SM)
  • The company is ready to fall down go “BOOM”!
  • Preparing to file for bankruptcy
  • Has $3000 to their name and their credit got pulled
  • Own the rights to such games as Fallout and Earthworm Jim
  • Most popular? Probably Baldur’s Gate (written by Bioware)
  • One of their first games published? Battlechess

Intarweb Goldmine

• Billion Dollar Star Trek Resort, in Jordan? (btm)
  • Rubicon Group Holding will design and produce “The Red Sea Astrarium”
  • 184 acre themed  entertainment resort in Aqaba, Jordan
  • Will prominently feature an attraction inspired by the 2009 Star Trek movie.
  • Themed destination will serve as a model for “green energy” incorporating state of the art renewable technologies throughout the facility.
  • Could have something to do with fact that King Abdullah II is a big Star Trek fan and actually appeared on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager when he was still a Prince.

• She Makes Junkpunching Look Friendly (udg)
  • A man whose penis was cut off during an alleged rape attempt in southern Bangladesh has fled his hospital possibly to avoid being arrested, hospital officials said Tuesday.
  • The Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital released the suspect, undergoing treatment after his penis was severed, at his own request as there were no instructions from police, physician Jahangir Alam said, adding that he may have left in haste for fear of arrest.
  • Police said that a 40-year-old woman, a neighbour of the accused man, had filed a complaint alleging he attempted to rape her in her home in southern Jhalakathi district, 200 kilometers south of Dhaka.
  • Jhalakathi police officer Abul Khayer said the woman, a housewife and mother of three children, cut off Mozammel’s penis Saturday night, wrapped it in plastic and came strutting in to the police station with it  as evidence.

• Sleeping-In Could Cost You (btm)
  • Do you really want to sleep-in?
  • New alarm clock designed to shread bills the longer you take to get out of bed.
  • You load bills in clock the night before, set the alarm and go to sleep
  • If you don’t get up when alarm sounds, it begins to shred the money one bill at a time.
  • Just a word of advice, willfully destroying U.S. currency is still a federal crime.
  • So sleeping in could cost you money, make you late, and potentially leave you facing a $100 fine and 6 months in jail.
  • WAKE UP!

• Taking Tree Hugging to a Whole New Level (udg)
  • According to BBC Mundo, Swede Leona Johansson and Norwegian Tommy Hol Ellingsen have spent eleven years using sex and porn as a non-profit way of raising money to help save the environment.
  • Since the Scandinavian couple set out on their unique path towards environmental salvation with the creation of their org Fuck for Forest, or FFF, they have attracted up to 1,300 like-minded activists all over the world.
  • From Germany to Chile, members are sharing their sex-lives in a bid to save trees.
  • Since 2000, they have raised an impressive 345,000 dollars by selling pornographic material via their website: explicit photos and videos of themselves having sex, usually out in the open.
  • “Saving the planet is sexy,” they argue, “so why not get turned on for a good cause?”
  • Johansson and Ellingsen shot to fame in the latter’s native Norway in 2004 when they had live sex on stage alongside local group The Cumshots at the Quart Festival in Kristiansand
  • Despite receiving money from the Norwegian government to get themselves started, and their evident success at raising money for environmental causes, more established environmentalist groups continue aren’t so keen.
  • Even the World Wildlife Fund in their home country of Norway refuses to accept their money: “We said no thanks. We are in favour of love and nature, but not this version,”a WWF spokesperson said.

• Can You Fit a Million Dollars in a Microwave? (btm)
  • Yes you can
  • Responding to the “How Much is Inside a Million Dollars” website where a man took bill sized paper to approximate a million dollars the website has now used actual one dollar bills to approximate a million dollars.
  • A million dollars would consist of 10,000 bills
  • Pictures show the bags of bills fitting on a DVD rack, in the laundry and, yes, in the microwave.

• Suuuure…. Blame the Blackberry (udg)
  • Rookie PC candidate George Lepp says he’s embarrassed that a photo of his family jewels was posted on his campaign Twitter account for about 20 minutes before it was quickly unzipped.
  • Alan Sakach, communications director for the Ontario Conservatives, said the photo was inadvertently taken by Lepp’s BlackBerry when it was in his front pocket. The photo was posted after someone took it from the candidate for the riding of Niagara Falls, Ont., according to Sakach.
  • “He is pretty upset and embarrassed,” Sakach said of a photo that was posted on Lepp’s account Sunday. “It was removed as soon as it came to his attention.”
  • QMI Agency obtained grainy copies of the Twitter page images before they were removed.
  • The pictures – too graphic to reproduce – are of a man naked from the waist down, showing a close up of his penis and his crossed legs.
  • Sakach said the device was operating on camera mode in his front pant pocket when it went missing. He added that Lepp suspects it was taken as he was jostled by protestors outside the Dixon Rd. convention centre where the Tories met for the party’s weekend convention.
  • Sakash said he didn’t know if police were called about the stolen BlackBerry
  • “It was an unfortunate circumstance,” Sakach said Sunday. “This is pretty low and juvenile, and we don’t believe it is politically motivated.”
  • Lepp, a Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., farmer and businessman, put the boots last November to Sandy Annunziata, a former Fort Erie, Ont., town councillor and Canadian Football League all-star, in a battle to become the Tory candidate in the provincial riding of Niagara Falls for October’s election.
  • Sakach said the image was first noticed by Lepp’s son, who administers the Twitter account, and was immediately removed.
  • On Friday, he told followers, “1500 people meeting in Toronto to support Ontario working families to stop McGuintys tax and spend policy that is killing Ontario Jobs.”
  • Lepp is credited with helping restructure the sales and marketing of Ontario’s grape and tender fruit industry to provide a more stable livelihood for farmers.
  • The photo of a penis on Lepp’s Twitter account surfaced as Ontario Conservatives vowed in Toronto to force high-risk sex offenders and other dangerous criminals to wear GPS monitoring bracelets.
  • (btm… that was ballsy of him)

• Prepared to Cheat? Better think again…
  • 2 guys with a pinhole camera and telephones tried to cheat the medical entrance exam
  • Conned 3 others into thinking they were going to be tutors
  • The images seen weren’t test-questions, they were the real thing
  • Students got suspicious, searched for exams being given, figured out they were being scammed, gave him wrong answers til the cops got there
  • Guys are being accused of everything under the sun and the authorities are throwing the book at them
  • Never try to con smart kids… they’re in medical school for a reason.

Extra Links

• Australian News Helicopter Records Multiple Waterspouts (btm)
• Wonder Woman Without Pants, What Could Have Been (btm)
  • I’m hiding it here in the Extra Links to see if Natali notices it!
  • I guess I’m not the only one going pantsless tonight! (btm)
  • soooooooooooooo scared to click on that & I’m always pantsless (udg)

• Wet and Warm, That’s How We Like Our Planets (btm)
  • French researchers have confirmed through computer modeling that Gilese 581d has a stable atmosphere, comfortable temperatures and a surface covered with liquid water.
  • The planet is about twice the size of Earth with six times the mass.
  • Orbits a red dwarf star approximately 20 light years away.
  • Scientists say its heavy CO2 atmosphere would be ideal for the development of plant life and where there’s plants there may also be animals.
  • With current technology any probe we sent to check on the planet would just take a century or two.
• World Record Hot Wheels Jump (kinda) (btm)
  • Crowds at last Sunday’s Indy 500 were treated to a surprise.
  • A world record truck jump at turn 4 of the race track.
  • Stunt driver and Top Gear star Tanner Faust set a new jumping distance world record for a 4-wheeled vehicle.
  • As part of the “Fearless at the 500” promotion Faust  drove down a ramp made to look like a Hot Wheels V-Drop track launching his modified “Pro-2” truck 332 feet beating the previous record of 301 feet.
  • As part of the promotion Faust’s identity was kept secret until the day of the jump even though he has been practicing for months.
  • Previous promotional videos digitally masked Faust’s face.

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

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• 10% off power rings
• Who: @aDigitalAngel & fellow nerds at ShinyLines.com

Get Shinylines in Gold Sponsors

• ShinyLines Power Geek Rings!!!
  • I’m almost giggly with anticipation!!
  • Check out shop.shinylines.com for more product -OR-
  • Send darthmolen@gmail.com an email saying you want this ring. If there’s enough interest, we are going to make this available to the public

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

• LEGO Gun Shoots LEGO Bricks (udg)
  • What’s cooler than building a gun out of LEGOs? Why building one that actually shoots LEGO bricks of course!!! Check it out! Yeah, I’m keeping this one away from the monkeys. We’ve seen A Christmas Story a million times, one would still shoot an eye out.
• Lego Technic Super-8 Projector (SM)
• Modern Warfare 3 (CustomPcMax brought this to my attention)
• Roll a D6

Geek Speak

• Special Guest Barrett Brown talks Anonymous & Project PM
  • Barrett Brown. Ex public face of Anonymous, Reporter, Author, and contributor to Vanity fair, The Guardian & Al Jezeera
  • Campaign to encourage ppl to participate in small online groups for activism reason
  • Crowd Sourcing
  • into Intelligence contracting industry

Gold Sponsors:

Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History

• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Bark Maul, or Hothballs, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• New Movie Releases (SM)
  • The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin) GENIUS!!!
  • Platoon!
  • Tigerland (Joel Schumacher & Colin Farrell)
  • Papillon & Le Mans (Steve McQueen FTW)

• Barnes and Noble has Unveiled it’s New Touchsreen e-reader
  • The Simple Touch Reader is a replacement for the old black and white 1st Generation Nook
  • Has a 6 inch Pearl E Ink display and is 35% lighter than the original Nook
  • Sells for $139
  • Simple design utilizes touchscreen to make the device much more tablet-like than its predecessor.
  • Promises 2 months of battery life, but this is using the default industry standard of 1 hour of use per day.

• 2nd Release of Blizzcon 2011 tickets (SM)
  • Wednesday at 7 PM Pacific… get them before they sell out in seconds!
  • (more than likely, if you aren’t live then you missed this)

• Duke Nukem Forever Gone Gold? (SM)
  • anonymous reports are the game is finally on the CD cut phase
  • 15 years after they started development of course

Movie Minute (new feature)

• Stephen Fry joins the cast of The Hobbit.(btm)
  • Peter Jackson has announced via Facebook
  • Veteran Actor, Writer, and British National Treasure
  • Will Play “The Master of Laketown
• Are you getting stiffed at the theater? (SM)
  • 3D lenses on the new digital projectors make everything dark in 2D films
  • Probably around a 40% drop in light
  • Look up and if there’s 2 beams of light and your in a 2D film.. they probably have the wrong lens on.
  • Reason? Hard to change lenses between film types.Teenage minimum wage workers. nuff said

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• NASA to Send Astronauts into Deep Space (btm)
  • NASA announced that it plans to build new spacecraft that will fly astronauts to nearby asteroids or Mars.
  • The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is based on the design of the cancelled Orion vehicle, originally designed to take astronauts back to the moon.
  • New vehicle is to be built by Lockheed-Martin and will carry a crew of 4 astronauts on 21 day missions.
  • Design is said to be 10 times safer than current shuttles
  • Will have 316 cubic feet of habitable space and be able to land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
  • Lockheed Martin is said to be making a version of the Orion vehicle for use as a “lifeboat” for the International Space Station. Once the shuttle fleet is permanently retired this will be a vital means of evacuating astronauts from the ISS in an emergency.

• CDC Finally Recognizes Zombies (udg)
  • After years in healthcare and a monkey in elementary school, I can tell you the Center for Disease Controls doesn’t mess around. Which is why I find great joy in them not only acknowledging Ali Kahn’s Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse but embracing it to market to the masses the importance of being prepared for emergencies. Whether you are over the zombie craze, still lovin’ the zombie or convinced the apocalypse could never happen, it can’t hurt to prepare for it. Like the CDC says, if you are ready for a zombie apocalypse, you’re ready for any emergency. Well, except maybe that whole giant earthquake rapture thing.
  • I’m going to skip past her intro to zombies. I think everyone listening knows what a zombie is. They nom on brains. Preferably yours. They get you, you nom on brains too or just get ripped to complete shreds. Either one is gonna ruin your weekend.
  • The most important part, and the one that the CDC is really passing on is what you’re going to want in your emergency kit.  (for a full list visit the CDC Emergency page) Here are some of the basics:

• Water (1 gallon per person per day)
• Food (stock up on non-perishable items that you eat regularly)
• Medications (this includes prescription and non-prescription meds)
• Tools and Supplies (utility knife, duct tape, battery powered radio, etc.)
• Sanitation and Hygiene (household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
• Clothing and Bedding (a change of clothes for each family member and blankets)
• Important documents (copies of your driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate to name a few)
• First Aid supplies (although you’re a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane)
  • Now that you’ve got your kit made- I(’m thinking rolling suitcase is gonna be needed at least. Remember- ziploc bags are your friends too. And DO NOT FORGET A CAN OPENER) you’re gonna wanna sit down with your fam and come up with an emergency plan. I’m not ashamed to say- I already know the ideal place to hunker down in the event zombies do attack. We definitely have a plan. For more info on how you can create a plan- CDC Site

• • Don’t fear says the CDC, they have a plan too! If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. They would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas.
  • So there ya have it. My best advice? Memorize Zombieland and do not forget the double tap.

• Draft Horses used to lay fiber optics in West Virginia (SM)
  • You would think this would be Intarwebz
  • How do you get huge spools of Fiber over and to remote locations such as mountains???
  • Wheeled vehicles can’t do it
  • Enter Desmarais and his 1200 lb draft horse “Fred”
  • West Virginia has promised broadband to every last mile by 2013 but how do you get vehicles and crews into unpassable dirt roads and swamps???
  • Fred, solves the problem by pulling the cables off the spools and not leaving a mark (unlike four wheelers)
  • He’s been working the job for 5 years now
  • On a good day? He string around 8,000 feet of cable and works a 70 hr work week

• Micro$oft Giving College Students Free X-Box with New Computers (btm)
  • For a limited time Microsoft is giving students a special offer
  • Buy a Windows 7 PC for over $699 and get a free Xbox 360
  • If you have a .edu email address you can make purchase online
  • otherwise you’ll need to bring proof of studentship to local participating retailer and make purchase there.
  • Deal only good through Sept. 9th or while supplies last.

• Zuckerberg Wants to Get Rid of Age Restrictions on FB (udg)
  • It’s not going to shock anyone I’m sure that there are many FB users under the required age of 13. But, it seems CEO Mark Zuckerberg is okay with that. He voiced his desire to allow younger users to use the world’s largest social networking platform at the California New Schools Summit. “That will be a fight we take on at some point,” Zuckerberg said. “My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age. Because of the restrictions we haven’t even begun this learning process. If they’re lifted then we’d start to learn what works. We’d take a lot of precautions to make sure that they (younger kids) are safe.”
  • The minimum age of 13 is actually set by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection act, which is a federal law that was passed in 1998.  With many news stories highlighting online bullying, some ending very tragically, this makes for a very bold statement. Add in the fact FB continues to face some huge backlash over their handling of personal information and it’s very easy to dismiss Zuckerberg’s dream as simply an attempt to grow its user base.  Then again, he could be walking the line of a change in opinion. According to Fox News reports, the % of parents that feel comfortable with their child using social media has doubled over the past year. But, that’s only 17% of those polled.
  • WIth 7.5 million Facebook users under 13, and 5 million of those under 10, it would seem if kids can’t be stopped from using the service, then perhaps Zuckerberg is right and Facebook should be adapted to better suit them That is going to mean providing stronger content filters and parental notifications for starters. But, first Zuckerberg will have to head up a campaign to change the law, and deal with the angry mob of parents that want to keep their kids off FB and other users that agree with them. It’s going to be a hell of a ride I’m sure and one definitely worth a watch. I’ll bring the popcorn.

• Hacker War on Sony Continues
  • Sony Music Greece Falls to Hackers (SM)
    • Sony BMG greece website hacked and username/emails posted to the webz
    • Passwords are bogus however in the post, does not guarantee that a someone doesn’t have them
    • Defeated by SQL Injection attack
  • Sony Hack Cost Company $170 Million (SM)
    • So the financial report states that the company lost 170 million to the attack
    • that was for this last fiscal year alone
    • That on top of a 3.2 Billion dollar loss from earthquake
  • Needless to say, somebody has an axe to grind with Sony

• Blast Rips Through Chinese Apple Plant (btm)
  • (SM)wow, 500,000 iPads revealed with a bang!
  • Blast in Chengdu factory killed 3 and injured 15 employees
  • Caused by combustible dust in workshop that polishes iPads
  • Explosion isn’t expected to cause delays unless safety inspections exceed 2 or 3 weeks
  • Many are saying this is an example of the dangers of concentrating product production in one or two areas. One disaster has potential of causing major shortages.

• Automotive Black Boxes (udg)
  • Later this year, the National Highway Safety Administration is talking about proposing a requirement that all new vehicles contain a black box pretty much like the ones on aircrafts that will record vehicle inputs and provide a snapshot of the final moments before a crash.
  • Who would have access to it? Law enforcement, insurance companies, automakers and I’m guessing anyone that figures out how to hack it. You won’t be able to turn it off and i’m sure all you’ll know about it is the little legal disclosure in your owner’s manual. Sound way too big brother? Guess what- if you’re driving a car with airbags, odds are there’s already one of these devices under your hood.
  • Turns out Automakers have long installed electronic data recorders in their automobiles and ever since late 2006 the NHTSA has required them to tell consumers about the devices.  That federal rule also outlines what information is recorded and stipulates that it be used to increase vehicle safety.
  • This proposal would “Expand the availability and future utility of the EDR data” – so, in other words, all automobiles have the devices. The proposal is expected sometime this year and I’m guessing there is going to be A LOT of opposition to it.

• How fast is your Internet? (btm)
  • Researchers have set a new record sending data at 26 terabits per second
  • Equivalent of sending the contents of 1,000 HD DVDs in a second
  • Uses “fast Fourier transform” to unpick separate colors of light in laser beam, each encoded with its own data.

• Brain Cells Grown in a Lab (udg)
  • When it comes to brain cells, most people think of neurons. Well, the most common ones are actually astrocytes. They are small, star-shaped cells that actually act like little body guards for neurons. Because of that, they play an important role in diseases of the central nervous system like dementia. And now, we can grow them in a lab.
  • “Not a lot of attention has been paid to these cells because human astrocytes have been hard to get,”  said study researcher Su-Chun Zhang from UW-Madison. “But we can make billions or trillions of them from a single stem cell. Without the astrocyte, neurons can’t function,” Zhang went on to say “Astrocytes wrap around nerve cells to protect them and keep them healthy. They participate in virtually every function or disorder of the brain.”
  • These little bad boys also perform basic housekeeping functions, like regulating blood flow, cleaning up excess neurotransmitters and help control the blood-brain barrier, which keeps toxic substances out of the brain.
  • Zhang created the cells from both embryonic and adult stem cells by treating them with special proteins to get them to grow into astrocytes. These cells could also be useful as a transplant, to treat diseases like Lou Gehrig’s disease, in which the neurons are overworked. Transplanting healthy astrocytes could rescue the injured neurons. This really is a HUGE breakthrough.

• PSP Games Coming to PS3 (SM)
  • Plans to bridge between its handheld and its cadillac
  • PSP Remaster = most popular psp games ported to PS3
  • Given 3D support for good measure
  • Most games can be played on either the PSP or PS3 w/ saves transitioning through cloud
  • Only game announced? Monster Hunter Portable 3D HD
  • NGP already announced with 5” oled screen and dual thumb sticks
  • Already in turmoil, probably another attention grab to try and add sales
  • (SM) Will I have to buy the game twice???

• Netflix Ups Viacom Content (btm)
  • Over the weekend many folks online were concerned that Netflix was losing all Viacom content as it was all set to expire on May 22
  • Actually this was because new contracts between Netflix and Viacom were going into effect to provide even more Viacom content.
  • New content will include:
    • More episodes of “Jersey Shore” (god knows we need that)
    • More of “The Hills”
    • New shows from BET including “American Gangster”
    • Comedy Central shows like “The Sarah Silverman Program”
    • More episodes from Nickeloden of “Sponge Bob”
    • More unspecified content from VH1, Logo and Spike

Intarweb Goldmine

• Marriage Proposal via Movie Trailer (btm)
  • OMG this made me all kinds of tear up. The bastards. (udg)
  • An Atlanta man has made one of the coolest marriage proposals ever.
  • He worked with a wedding videographer to make a fake movie trailer that features him asking his girlfriend’s father’s blessing to marry her.
  • He then arranged for the trailer to be shown at their local theater prior to a showing of “Fast Five”
  • Made excuse that he “had to work” and sent her to theater with her brother.
  • Secretly filled the audience with family and loved ones.
  • After the trailer he enters the theater and proposes to her.

• So Wrong in So Many Ways (udg)
  • Justin Lawther staged a 1 man topless protest outside the RSPCA office in Burwood East and claims he’s going to return every day and is considering a hunger strike until he gets his Angus back in his arms.  Who is Angus? Oh the parrot he had seized from him after he filmed it clinging to a windshield wiper as he drove down the Eastern Freeway. Yup.
  • “I would die for him. He is my life,” he said. “I don’t tag him with ownership or call him my pet, because he’s my best mate.”
  • In March, Mr Lawther posted a video on YouTube of Angus’s ride, and another where the bird was thrown around by wipers.
  • Angry animal lovers set up a Save Angus the Eclectus Parrot page on Facebook.
  • On Friday, after a seven-week search and police intervention, the parrot was taken into custody.
  • Mr Lawther claims the bird was removed from his care without due process. “They didn’t even ask if he is on treatment or an exercise regimen, which he is,” he said. “It has been a rollercoaster and I’m not doing very well. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
  • The RSPCA plans to file a court application to stop Angus being returned to Mr Lawther.

• Chinese Exploding Watermelons (btm)
  • 115 acres of melons have been ruined after bursting open
  • contributing factors may be from the chemical forchlorfenuron a fruit growth enhancer
  • Chinese health officials are saying heavy rains after a recent draught caused the melons to burst, but director of the US National Watermelon Association says that rainfall alone doesn’t cause melons to burst like this, only mildew and shallow surface cracking.

• Speaking of Watermelons- Don’t Toss This Guy’s Into the Ocean (udg)
  • It seems 68 year old Karl Ludwig Eichner takes his watermelon very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. In fact police arrested the Florida man at Lowdermilk Park after he harassed a woman with a pool noodle before punching her in the face.
  • According to the police report, the women noticed a watermelon that was carved into the shape of a head resting in the sand. The seemingly abandoned melon was attracting insects, so the woman picked it up and, thinking the melon would eventually disintegrate, disposed of it in the ocean.
  • Eichner, however, retrieved the watermelon and returned it to the beach, only to have the woman once again dispose of it in the ocean.
  • And that’s when Eichner stopped using his noodle, according to investigators.
  • “Eichner approached the woman with his swim noodle full of water and dumped the water on her as she was sitting on her towel,” according to the police report. “He then punched her in the cheek.”
  • Personally I make it a point to never mess with anyone that carves a watermelon into the shape of a head.
• Depression Era America, in Color (btm)
  • We’ve all seen the old black and white pictures from the Great Depression and World War II
  • Library of Congress has recently released about 1,700 new photos from the early 1940s and they’re in color.
  • These beautifully shot pictures show everyday life in America as the Great Depression grew close to an end and World War II was on the horizon.
• There Can Be Only One (udg)
  • A Louisville woman faces first-degree disorderly conduct and menacing charges after police said she took out a sword during an argument at a Pizza Hut.
  • According to an arrest report, Wynika Mason was causing trouble at the Pizza Hut on Seventh Street Road and police were called.
  • When police arrived, she began yelling at them, the report said.
  • Customers and employees were in the restaurant, and employees said they felt threatened by Mason’s behavior.
  • An employee told police Mason had a sword with her and began yelling and pulling it out of the scabbard, according to the police report. The report also stated Mason’s brother said he took the sword from her and put it in the car.
  • Officers were given consent to search the vehicle and found the sword on the driver’s seat.

• Only the Most Shocking Thing You’ll See Online This Week (btm)
  • Attendees of this year’s Maker Faire got a surprise treat
  • After guest speaker Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) gave his scheduled talk he entered a Faraday cage and danced while ArcAttack performed the Doctor Who Theme using custom built “Singing Tesla Coils” and a lot of electricity

Extra Links

• Interview with Michael Scott, Apple’s First CEO (btm)
• Download CDC Zombie Badges (udg)

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

Sponsors

Shiny Lines

• What: Shiny Geek Jewelry, clothing and other bits & bytes, made by Geeks for Geeks.
• Why: Geeks, Nerds & Gamers alike deserve to shine at their very best, on and offline.
• 10% off power rings
• Who: @aDigitalAngel & fellow nerds at ShinyLines.com

Get Shinylines in Gold Sponsors

• ShinyLines Power Geek Rings!!!
  • I’m almost giggly with anticipation!!
  • Check out shop.shinylines.com for more product -OR-
  • Send darthmolen@gmail.com an email saying you want this ring. If there’s enough interest, we are going to make this available to the public

Items of Interest

It’s a trap! (Furious Fanboys)

• Where’s The Tardis? Contest (udg)
  • The contest, designed to challenge Doctor Who fans to a DIY, TARDIS-building challenge, will earn the winner of the contest a private screening of Doctor Who with 50 guests of their choice, courtesy of BBC America. The contest is over now and there’s nothing left to do but judge the winners, but the entries are remarkable: there are birthday cakes, hand-carved TARDIS models, huge TARDIS replicas, and more –like this TARDIS Murphy Bed.

• Amazing Shuttle Launch Photos

• Star Tours Re-Opening in Disneyland
• Hyde N Geek Kids Need To Read Tweetathon (udg)
  • Awesome people raising money for kids to get books? HELLS YEAH! The awesomeness that is Hyde n Geek raised $2000 in 36 hours last year for Kids Need to Read and the 2011 event kicks off tomorrow!! Follow the link in the show notes for the dets and help support this kick ass cause!!!

Gold Sponsors:

Jeb Apps – Today in Geek History, Today in Movie History

• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and iPhone
• Now As Seen on Wired.com!!

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Bark Maul, or Hothballs, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Contests- Winners??

Giving away 2 decks of Dabong! to whomever hears the cowbell (before the intarweb goldmine) and comment on our Facebook page on the time and why they love card games

• 2 – 5 players take turns laying down cards in a central pile. Instead of the basic suits found in a standard deck of cards, dabong! uses Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire.

• lays down a card is by matching the suit
• Also match the number of the card in the pile to a card in the player’s hand.
• additional options to play the players can play cards of the same suit that add up to the number in the middle. For example, if a 10 of Fire is in the central pile, a player could play a 2, a 3, and a 5 of Water all at the same time.
• A player wins when he/she has used all of his/her cards, or through a dabong! A dabong occurs when a players cards add up to the central card, regardless of suit.

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Nintendo and Best Buy team up (btm)
  • Starting in June Best Buy will offer free wireless Internet to 3DS users in stores
  • When connected to Best Buy network they can access movie trailers, gaming extras and exclusive content
  • Nintendo is hoping this will help increase the appeal of having a 3DS because while many people replying to polls say they want one, they also say now isn’t the time to buy it.

• Movie Releases
  • 5 Deadly Venoms (BR) – Chop Sockey, action, and puzzle oriented.
  • The Mechanic – Jason Statham. ‘nuff said
  • The Bionic Woman – Season 2 (BR) – Lindsay Wagner, Slo Mo, if that’s your thing
  • BEVERLY HILLS COP (BR) – Classic!!! Definite pick up!
  • Hanna Barbara – Chuck Norris “Karate Kommandos” – buahahahah! (insert jokes here ben )

• Steam Deals -
  • Worms Reloaded for 9.99 (until thursday)

Movie Minute (new feature)

• Say Goodbye To Wonder Woman Mr. Kelley (udg)
  • The train wreck that is David E Kelley’s  ”Wonder Woman”  has officially  been shelved by bosses at NBC.
  • Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt has spoken about his decision not to greenlight the series after watching Kelley’s pilot. He told EW.com, “They made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job. You look at what you have, what you need, and it just didn’t seem to fit in with what we were doing. We did what was best for the schedule.”
  • Now, I know there are some people out there taking the “shame on everyone that raised such a fuss over this and got it cancelled” stance.
  • Bite me.  It was clearly going to completely crap all over my childhood idol and I have every right to rant, rave and fuss my lil heart out over it.
  • Don’t believe me- listen to old Greenblatt himself  ”I was surprised there was such an uproar (about the promotional shots of Palicki in costume), but that didn’t have anything to do with whether the show got picked up. I love that it got so much attention. All that engagement from people, whether it was positive or negative, was good. And she did ultimately have these little hot pants.”
  • Those little hot pants. *le sigh* Thank you Greenboob for at least having the sense to slam the breaks on this before it aired. Somethings just can’t be unseen.

• Look Out Bedrock, Here Comes Seth MacFarlane (udg)
  • After years of super complicated negotiations between 20th Century Fox TV and Warner Bros. Television it looks like Seth MacFarlane is going to be able to realize one of his life’s ambitions after all- to reboot The Flinstones.
  • According to Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly, production on the animated series will begin production in Fall 2011 for a 2013 premiere on the Fox schedule. In a cross-studio collaboration, The Flintstones will be produced jointly by 20th Century Fox Television and Warner Bros Television. Dan Palladino (Gilmore Girls) and Kara Vallow (Family Guy) will serve as executive producers with Seth MacFarlane who says the very first cartoon character he drew at age 2 was Fred Flintstone. “So it’s appropriate that events have come full circle, allowing me to produce the newest incarnation of this great franchise. Plus, I think America is finally ready for an animated sitcom about a fat stupid guy with a wife who’s too good for him.”
  • In a video shown at the upfronts, MacFarlane shed some light on his plans for the remake: The characters will look the same but he’ll introduce new technology, like “What is the animal version of an iPad?” No doubt the rightholders are a lil bit concerned about how MacFarlane is going to interpret the classic series. It certainly can’t be worse than the horrible films they let Universal put out.
  • I’m interested to see what Seth comes up with.

Geek Speak

• Is a personalized web a bad thing? -
• We’ve lived with a lot of stuff being tailored for our wants on the Internet
• Cross-sell in shopping carts, Likes in Facebook influencing your news stream,  certain articles showing up based upon your interests in the past, Sidebar ads, etc
• now search engines take some of this other information and filters searches based upon what they perceive as your preferences (Dec. 4, 2009 – google opted in)
• Real time bidding in place for placed ads
• Finger printing of your computer (even when you opt out of cookies and tracking)
  • Some of the things that pop on on the Google ads while I’m reading my email make me giggle. I think it’s insane that any company thinks it can anticipate my needs, wants, desires based on previous anything. (udg)
  • (SM) I personally think its dangerous and allows a company too much power to influence the weak minded. Not like Obi-Wan, more like Vader. What will they do with that power? They’re corporate America
  • (SM) Do y’all think it stifles discovery and exploration?? How do you know you will like something until you actually see it?

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Network shows on Hulu safe for a few more years (btm)
  • Good news fellow hulu users, NBC, Fox and ABC are close to extend licensing agreements to continue providing programming
  • the site will continue to offer free, ad-supported programming along with its Hulu Premium subscription package.
  • Likely to change, however, is the window of time between when shows are on TV and when they are made available on hulu.
    • Networks want to increase this time so as to encourage viewers to watch shows when they air.
  • Networks may also negotiate a non-exclusive deal allowing them to stream programming on Amazon and Netflix.

• Facebook under attack from Spammers (SM)
  • Seen an uptake of “see who is browsing your profile” or “see xxx do yyy in this stupid video” lately? So have we
  • Facebook has noticed it too and beefed bp their antispam defense
  • Despite the work, the spammers are finding ways around it
  • It’s an arm race now to see who can trump whom.
  • Word to the wise folks… don’t click on things you don’t know about or are too good to be true, don’t paste thing into your location bar

• Dropbox Lies About Data Security (udg)
  • Online file storage service Dropbox has made my life easier and I’ve been a huge fan of it. Well, now I’m raising a little bit of an eyebrow. Last month it seems it changed its privacy policy to note that upon request, law enforcement agencies would be given access to a user’s Dropbox files. Then they came under fire again when it was uncovered that Dropbox employees had access to user directories. Over this last month Dropbox has quietly been making changes to its privacy agreement and terms of service to both respond and silently acknowledge that some of the privacy concerns uncovered by security researchers last month.
  • Hmmm…Not that I have anything to hide from the law in my box, but I certainly never got a notice that there was any sort of an update.  Seems I’m not the only one.
  • Shortly after some of the changes had been made, researcher and Ph.D candidate Christopher Soghoian (the same Soghoian who broke the story to the media that Facebook had hired a PR firm to smear Google) noticed that what Dropbox was saying in public versus what it’s employees have access to and what they don’t are very different things. He outlined his concerns in a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and accuses Dropbox of making deliberately misleading and deceiving its customers into thinking their data is more private than it is.
  • For example, Dropbox’s security policy once said that files stored on Dropbox servers were encrypted and were inaccessible without an account password. That statement was amended to say only that the files were encrypted, which quietly put Dropbox on the hook for having a way to access user files without the user’s password.
  • And their terms of service said that Dropbox employees “aren’t able to access user files.” Now it has been changed to “are prohibited from viewing the content of files.” This subtle change means that Dropbox employees shouldn’t access user files as a matter of policy, not that they’re unable to.
  • All the while, Soghoian says, Dropbox has been telling its customers that their data is safe and secure from prying eyes. Dropbox, for its part, says there’s nothing to the complaint, and that they’ve always been up front with their privacy policies. They say the changes in their policies have been a result of clarifying their policy  and that they’ve been very open with who has access to user files and under what circumstances.
  • The complaint demands that Dropbox clarify its terms of service and its website so exactly who can access user files and how is completely clear. It also demands that Dropbox notify its 25 million users to let them know their data is being stored in the clear and that employees are essentially on the honor system when it comes to not looking at it, and offer refunds to Pro users who may have subscribed under false pretenses of security and anonymity. Dropbox says there’s no merit to the claim, that it raises old issues they’ve already clarified, and will respond formally to the FTC.
  • Really Dropbox? Cuz I still haven’t seen any notice from you that changes have been made. Yup, this is me giving you the stinkeye.

• U.S. Navy launching online gaming (btm)
  • The Navy is adding a new weapon to its arsenal, Internet Gamers
  • The Office of Naval Research is rolling out the military’s first online war game open to the public.
  • Project: MMOWGLI (Massively Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet) is aiming to replicate traditional military strategy sessions.
  • Using virtual simulation and social media tools players will work together to respond to made-up geopolitical situations due to private ships being hijacked off the Somali coast.
  • 7000 people have already signed for the $450,000 pilot project.
  • Lacking high-tech graphics, the game provides video clips and storyboards and users are are prompted to envision scenarios.
  • Critics say sifting through the massive amount of junk data may prove to make the system unfeasible but ONR sources say they are aware of possible pitfalls and will be monitoring the game around the clock.

• PSN Network is back! (SM)
  • They did a rolling regional restart where you could check their website for your region
  • (SM) I saw my friends update, it wasn’t that long, prompted for a password reset
  • Japan isn’t too hot about it – they hadn’t “approved” the changes and weren’t sure that Sony went far enough to protect its user data.
  • PSN Outage Deals (NA)
  • Trying to entice users back. -
    • 30 days free access to Music unlimited (30 mr for already subscribed)
    • 30 days free access to PSN Plus (60 for current)
    • 100 items on playstation home
    • Free identity monitoring
    • Selection of videos to rent “on them” over a free weekend
    • 2 free Game downloads / PSP games: LBP, infamous, Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD, Dead Nation || LBP, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force, Killzone Liberation
  • Oops, spoke too soon, Password reset page hacked

• Got an Android? Make Sure You’re Running 2.3.4 (udg)
  • If you’re  an Android user with one of the 99% of Android phones running software version 2.3.3 or below, a new study shows you are vulnerable to a security attack that allows hackers to access your Google accounts- including your Contacts, Calendar and Picasa.
  • The way the attack works is that an evildoer would take advantage of a device which is connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi network and snatch up its authTokens — basically secret digital codes used to securely identify you and your device and tell a service that you have permission to access it.
  • Hackers are able to do this because authTokens are not only being stored on devices for up to two weeks, but also sent over unencrypted connections.
  • So what can someone do with your authTokens? He or she can pretend to be you — at least in the eyes of a service such as Twitter, Facebook, or Google — and access your accounts easily.
  • Scary, yes. But, don’t panic.  While nothing is fool-proof, there are steps you can take to protect yourself a little bit. The most important one of those steps: Avoid unprotected, shady, or unknown Wi-Fi networks.
  • One more time for EVERYONE-  avoid unprotected, shady, or unknown Wi-Fi networks.  If you absolutely must use one, at least “switch off automatic synchronization in the settings menu” of your device. Doing so won’t exactly keep you safe, but at least it’ll make a tiny difference.
  • You should also keep an eye out for Android 2.3.4 updates for your devices as those appear to patch up this particular vulnerability.

• Your Stream May Soon be a Felony (btm)
  • Under current law reproducing and distributing copyrighted works is a felony and covers Peer-2-Peer transfers and web downloading.
  • Streaming has been treated as “public performances”
  • New Senate Bill (S. 978) would add streaming to the list of felonies when:
    • They show 10 or more “public performances” by electronic means in any 180-day period and
    • The total retail value of those performances tops $2,000 or the cost of licensing of such performances is greater than $5,000.
  • Offenders could face five years in prison and a $25,000 fine
  • Some critics of the bill are pointing out that having copyrighted material playing in the background during a UStream or Justin.tv broadcast could lead to felony charges against the net caster.

• Yet more content for Netflix, Miramax (SM)
  • The juggernaut keeps rolling
  • look for new content end of the month from Miramax!
  • several hundred in fact “Pulp Fiction”, “Shakespeare in Love”, “Good Will Hunting” some of the titles mentioned
  • There’s even a hint of Amazon and other services but still Netflix beat them all to the punch

• First Skype, now Nokia? (udg)
  • Microsoft has been on a buying spree lately, but this one would blow all the other ones clear outta the water.  According to a post on Twitter by Eldar Murtazin, the Russian technology blogger who’s managed to scoop the media before with his insider sources at Nokia, Microsoft is planning a bid for Nokia’s mobile division. The total cost: $30 billion.
  • Eldar isn’t just some blogger with wild ideas. His sources have been right in the past, and he was the first to break the story that Nokia was going to side with Microsoft over Google for Windows Phone 7 instead of Android. He was also the man who shocked the tech world with the assertion that only 674,000 Windows Phones were sold during the first quarter they were available, calling it a “total failure.”
  • If he is correct, Nokia would leave the mobile phone business entirely, and Microsoft would pick up its mobile unit and start manufacturing Windows Phones using Nokia hardware and technology. If you’re shocked or simply don’t believe it, you have good reason to be skeptical.
  • After all, Microsoft just shelled out $8.5 billion – the most it has for any single acquisition in its history – to buy Skype. They already have a partnership with Nokia worth over $1 billion to provide Windows Phone 7 to Nokia’s next generation of smartphones, when they’re announced. Even so, some people point to Microsoft’s failed bid for Yahoo! last year for $40 billion as proof they’re willing to shell out big bucks if the opportunity is right.
  • Additionally, new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is largely seen by Nokia fans as a Microsoft “plant” of sorts, softening up the company and giving Microsoft more influence from the inside. Elop did indeed work for Microsoft at one point, but whether or not his loyalties are to his current or former employer are probably less important than the question of how well such a large deal would work in the long run.
  • Naturally, Microsoft and Nokia both refuse to comment on the matter at all.

• They Have the Technology, They Can Rebuild Him (btm)
  • 26 year-old Austrian man has voluntarily had his hand amputated so he can be fitted with a bionic limb.
  • He lost the use of his right hand after a serious motorcycle accident in 2001
  • He regained the use of his arm but not his hand.
  • After operations failed to restore use of his hand he was asked if he wanted to participate in this elective amputation
  • A previous patient who lost he use of his left hand after being electrocuted at work had a similar operation last year and is now able to open bottles and tie his own shoes.

• Anonymous Loses Its Public Face (udg)
  • It would seem the public feud that has broken out between different hacker factions within the infamous Anonymous has proven too much for Barrett Brown, the reporter that had become a media-friendly spokesperson for them.
  • Not only is Brown saying deuces, he told Threatpost that he and around two dozen Anonymous members are forming a splinter group to focus on efforts to root out what Brown has described as “criminality and corruption” within the U.S. Government, U.S. military, corporations and the media.
  • Brown, a journalist and author, has been the public face and chief apologist from the anarchic and leaderless group during recent controversies, including the hack of security firm HBGary. He said recent feuds between different Anonymous factions, culminating in the recent takeover of two IRC chat servers used by the group convinced him that the group had lost its way.
  • “I’m tired of the drama,” Brown told Threatpost in a phone interview  ”You’ve got kids fighting for control of an IRC channel. I’m a researcher. I’m into revolutionary stuff. But there are other people for whom its about exerting power,” he said.
  • Brown told Threatpost he is defecting with what he claims are around two dozen Anonymous members. He said he planned to focus on Project PM – an effort to create an umbrella group that will support other organizations that want to expose pro-government and pro-corporate bias in the media.
  • The parting of ways between Brown and the allegedly “leaderless” group comes at a perilous time. Recent months have seen defectors from the group publish potentially damaging information that could be used to identify active members. Anonymous observers, who asked to remain anonymous themselves, said there’s reason to believe that Brown is being cut off by core Anonymous members worried about having their identities exposed, or wary of Brown’s focus on government wrongdoing. Sources say that ongoing criminal investigations of Anonymous’s previous actions may soon produce indictments and that more than one longtime member has “gone dark” in recent weeks, especially after the group was mentioned as a possible source of the PlayStation Network breach.
  • I was incredibly intrigued by Brown’s new project. It reminds me a bit of Hackers for Charity, and you know that all kinds of screams Natali. So, I emailed him asking for more information and if he’d like to come on the show to discuss it. Guess what? He said yes! So, stay tuned for special guess Barrett Brown on an upcoming show!

Intarweb Goldmine

• Blame It On The Cheese (udg)
  • When Antonio Hernandez was pulled over, I’m guessing he wasn’t expecting to do 4 days in an Asheville jail. The Buncombe County deputy that pulled him over was stoked, thinking he had made a 91 pound cocaine bust when his portable kit changed colors indicating the mixture Hernandez was carrying was illegal drugs.
  • Yeah, it turns out that an enzyme found in cheese triggered false drug test results. Yup, cheese. Those 91 pounds of suspected coke was actually 91 pounds mix of cheese, shrimp and tortilla and tamale dough.  How the Hell that could be mistaken for nose candy is beyond me.
  • Sheriff Van Duncan told The Asheville Citizen-Times he didn’t know until this case that some foods, like cheese, can give false positives on field drug tests. He plans to have deputies talk to the company that makes the tests. I’d like to hear what he plans on doing to make up for the 4 days in jail Antonio spent.

• What Happens to Your Pets after the Rapture? (btm)
  • With the coming return of Christ scheduled for this Saturday a group is offering to take care of your pets once you have been called to God.
  • Dedicated group of animal lovers and confirmed athiests
  • Currently active in 26 states, employing 40 pet rescuers
  • For $135 they guarantee if the rapture occurs within 10 years of your payment one pet per residence will be rescued. ($20 for each additional pet)
  • Service limited to “dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and small caged mammals” at this time
  • Rescue for “horses, camels, llamas and donkeys in NH, VT, ID and MT”

• German Census Asks The Important Stuff (udg)
  • Seems a fake census form going around Germany has some Lederhosen in a bunch. The forms look like Germany’s current 2011 census forms — which just went out this week — and has questions like “Which drugs do you take?” with boxes marked with options like LSD or marijuana. Another question asks if the respondent has a breast or penis enlargement procedure. And how big your penis is.
  • The forms may look real, but those questions, intriguing as they may be, aren’t officially part of the census.
  • “These questions were all entirely fictitious, we wouldn’t ask anything like that,” said Klaus Voy, Census Project Manager at the Brandenburg-Berlin Office of Statistics.
  • Although the fake census looks identical to the real thing, unlike the real one, the forms are mysteriously delivered to mailboxes without an envelope.
  • Since the real German census has come under fire from privacy advocacy groups because some questions, such as immigration background and religion, are beyond EU requirements, officials fear the questions on the fake census might, at first glance, seem legit.

• SHIELD causes terror alert (btm)
  • Police in Ann Arbor, Michigan evacuated a bus terminal after a suspicious package was found across the street.
  • Michigan State Police Bomb Squad was called to the scene.
  • Turns out it was a promotional tie-in item from Acura advertising the new Thor movie. (in theatres now)

• Sleeping Bandit Strikes Bowling Green (udg)
  • When Bowling Green police caught up to an alleged sleeping bandit Saturday, in addition to drugs, they found all kinds of goodies in the man’s pockets  like several disposable razors, a bottle of Drakkar Noir cologne, a bottle of Adidas cologne, skin cleanser and two pickled sausages.
  • A man called police when he found an unknown, “extremely drunk” man in bed with his mother. The sleeping bandit was wearing blue jeans, a gray shirt and a brown hat. He was bloodied and left blood on the back door and on the woman’s bed sheets.
  • The resident and his mother escorted the man out of their home while he was claiming several times that he was inside “Woody’s house.” The resident called police.
  • Officers were unable to find the man until about two hours later, when he struck again about a block down the road. This time, cupcakes were involved.
  • BGPD officers responded to a home where they found Benjamin Williams, 37, asleep on a couch inside the home. Williams matched the description of the man seen at the other Kenton Street home.
  • Williams was wearing muddy pants that were wet in the front where he appeared to have urinated on himself. He also had black smears on his face and hands. Police determined that Williams had eaten the ashes out of a hooka pipe inside the residence. Police photographed Williams while he slept.
  • The resident showed police where a window screen had been broken. It also appeared that once Williams came inside the home, he helped himself to several cupcakes – valued at $3 – and ransacked the man’s refrigerator.
  • Williams is lodged in the Warren County Regional Jail with a $5,000 cash bond, according to court records. He is charged with second-degree burglary, possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia-buy/possess and possession of a controlled substance.
  • Pickled sausage, cupcakes, snorting hookah ashes, this guy has more of a wild night out sleeping than I do awake!

• Apple Gives You a Religious Experience (btm)
  • Team of UK neuroscientists scanned the brain of an Apple fan and found that Apple products stimulated the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith.
  • They chose to investigate after passing a new Apple store and being reminded of “an evangelical prayer meeting.”
  • The research also discusses the popularity of Facebook, mobile phones and social networks.
  • “Like Apple, mobile phones and social networks offer an opportunity for us to express our basic human need to communicate.”

• Planking gone wrong (sm)
  • Internet weirdness, bunch of pictures of ppl lying on their stomachs flat surface all over the internet
  • Weird position, everywhere from top of fast food counters to top of a grille
  • Well, 20 yr old in Australia took it too far
  • Tried to lay flat on his stomach on the balcony rail and ended up falling and dying
  • When your friend jumps off that bridge, Don’t you do it too! See, your mom was right when you were younger

• “Go the F#$@ to Sleep” Tops Charts (btm)
  • New bedtime book for parents has already topped the Amazon bestseller charts a month before its release.
  • Written by novelest Adam Mansbach after his own daughter refused to go to sleep one night.
  • Book combines cute rhymes with expletive-ridden pleas.
  • Originally scheduled for release in October the release date was moved up to June after a pirated PDF of the book went viral.
  • Film rights have already been snatched up by Fox 2000
  • “It’s definitely not a book to read to your child”, said the publisher, “but it will resonate with anyone who has ever spent, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, four hours reading ‘just one more bedtime story’.”
    • “The cubs and lions are snoring.
      Wrapped in a big snuggly heap.
      How come you can do all this other great s****
      But you can’t lie the f*** down and sleep?”

Extra Links

• Bing adding Facebook likes to searches
• Gingerbread upgrade for Galaxy S
• Buy a car on ebay mobile
• Woman is Allergic to Electricity (btm)
• Only in Vegas – Batman Gets a Beatdown (btm)

• Pirates delay Sony(btm)
  • Earlier this week Vodaphone New Zealand reported that an entire shipment of Sony Ericsson Xperia Play devices was stolen saying via Twitter, “a major security breach” had occured and the launch of Xperia Play would be delayed.
  • Later Vodaphone released “security footage” that looked very questionable
  • Turns out the whole thing was fake
  • Possibly an attempt at viral marketing gone very, very wrong.
• Digital New York (btm)
  • Mayor Bloomberg released a new outline of plans for NYC to form partnerships with social media companies
  • Through partnerships with Twitter, Facebook and New York based Foursquare and Tumblr NYC wants to be the top digital city in America
  • Plans are to offer wireless Internet access in parks
  • Vast reserves of data available to programmers
  • Live chats with 311 agents
  • City will register the .nyc domain
  • @nycgov will be used to provide immediate updates on city news
  • How will the city afford all this? Mayor Bloomberg says “We are going to try to encourage people to make it available”
  • The mayor doesn’t personally update his existing Facebook page, “I’m very old-fashioned. I use email.”

• How to urn a tree (btm)

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com, uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!) and tovias@racomics.com
• And Become a Fan

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We are LIVE on Ustream . This week we talk social responsibility in a digital age, the intarwebz got broke, big brother is watching you… everywhere

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

• The iCade Now A Reality (udg)
  • I mentioned during my April Fool’s Day rundown is that the glory of ThinkGeek’s “pranks” is that they often turn into real items. Well, their iCADE from last year is now up for presale. If you didn’t quite catch it from the name- it turns your iPad into an old-school arcade cabinet. You just slide your iPad in and it uses Bluetooth to connect so no cables to hook up.
  • ThinkGeek teamed up with Atari to bring back classics like Asteroids to the market for iCADE support. And to go with your iCADE comes the “Atari Greatest Hits” app with over 100 classic Atari games. You get pong for free right off the bat. The others are available in-app where you can get 3 for $1.00 or all 100 for $14.99.
  • The iCADE uses a unique API, which it will be opening up to developers so that they can add iCADE support to their games. ThinkGeek also teamed up with ION to develop the tabletop cabinet that features full button and joystick control.
  • Available for iPad and iPad 2, the iCADE is on presale now for just under $100 and is expected to start shipping on May 20, 2011. The first shipment that went on sale sold out in a day.

• Lil Thor: Marvel Releases Lil Thor Version of Our Beloved Lil Vader VW Commercial (udg)
  • Note the car’s plate is ASG4RD *giggle*

• Unique Marketing for Samsung Galaxy S2 (SM)
  • Bloggers put to the extreme unveiling and talking about the product
  • Toyota Raps

Gold Sponsors:

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• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on iTunes!!!
• (BTM) Happy BIrthday George Takei- I found this out from my newly downloaded Geek History app.
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and IPhone

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• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Bark Maul, or Hothballs, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• With Kinnect Sports Food Fight has a whole new meaning (btm)
  • New DLC for Kinnect sports available April 29
  • 320 Micro$oft points

• Hugo Nominees You Can Read Right Now… For Free! (udg)
  • The Hugo Awards recognize excellence in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. And because you know you don’t have enough to read, and I’m all about helping you find new stuff to add, I’ve stumbled upon a list of the nominees that are available for free online. Yup, free. And I’m not talking one or two. I’m talking 11 of the nominated Short Stories, Novellas, Novelettes and one movie. So, hope on over to our friends at TheMarySue.com and starting finding out how they earned their rank amongst the Hugo Award Nominees.

• WoW Patch 4.1 hit servers this week
  • trolls are definitely back… (Zul’Gurub, Zul’Aman, etc)
  • Guilder finder (like dungeon finder)
  • Guild Challenges

• Speaking of the Hugos, catch up on the Hugo award winning series Doctor Who (btm)
  • now 61% off on Amazon
  • Series 1 thru 4 featuring Hugo winning episodes:
    • “The Empty Child” & “The Doctor Dances” (are you my mommy?)
    • “The Girl in the Fireplace”
    • “Blink” (Weeping Angels are the single scariest thing to me)

• Dexter Ultimate Prop Giveaway (udg)
  • I hugely heart me some Dexter. And Showtime is handing out the ultimate props. 5 lucky winner will score 2nd place prize packs including one pack of Dexter Collectibles, one Baby Harrison Pack, a Debra Morgan Pack, a Trinity Killer Pack and a Dexter & Rita Wedding Pack.
  • One person will snag the Grand Prize which includes a “Bowl Till You Bleed” Bowling shirt, “Thank You for the Blood” Card, Dexter’s Kill Bag and Blood Spatter Pictures. It’s pretty damn awesome. So, head on over to the link in the show notes and… no don’t I want to win it!!

• New Movies for 4th Week of April
  • Blow out -John Travolta at his best
  • Marvel “The Avengers”: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Vol 1 and 2 – Disney + Marvel = goodness!
  • The Girl Who Leapt through Time (Anime) – multiple genres, supposedly good
  • Dinoshark- (btm)(take Jurassic Park mix with Jaws and you get Dinoshark, just with a much lower budget and not as great acting but 1000% more cheese)

Movie Minute (new feature)

• Hobbit Updates
  • Ian Holms back on set for Bilbo
• WW Script Rewrite- AKA Your WW Train Wreck of the Week (udg)
  • It’s a REALLY good thing I missed the leaked pilot script for this because it included  scenes of Diana having a sleepover, and eating ice cream (“It’s been a three-scoop day!”), and teaming up with her press secretary Myndi to “scream like schoolgirls” over a Katy Perry video, and maybe even crying herself to sleep over her old flame Steve Trevor.  WHAT. THE. TRUCK. Seriously?!?!?
  • Even though they didn’t listen to us over the costume I guess the outrage over turning our beloved WW into Allie McFreakinBeal must have sunk in because, according to i09, it’s been rewritten.
  • The new script has  her lifting bad guys by the throat, gouging their eyes with her thumbs, kicking them into their air with those go-go boots and making obscene gestures at them. In a flashback, we see her pulling Steve out of a burning airplane, despite being told that doing so will be way too dangerous. Even her cat seems braver: In one scene, we discover it’s bitten her neighbor William Marston (named after the “Wonder Woman” creator), who tells Diana he thinks Wonder Woman is a fascist. And apparently, Diana’s glad the cat bit him.
  • Yup. Do you really need me to say what I think of the rewrite?

Geek Speak

• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Social Responsibility in a Highly Digital Age
  • Sadly there have been story after story in this country of people being beaten, raped, even stabbed to death in broad daylight with many onlookers witnessing the horrendous acts. Fear of getting involved has been the biggest reason that people use when stating why they did not do anything to help. When there is a madman with a gun, it’s understandable why you wouldn’t want to.  When you are outnumbered and the situation is violent and ugly, trying to break it up may get you killed. But, with the technological advances we carry with us on a day to day basis I would hope that more would be done to aid in crisis situations. And when I say more being done, I sure as Hell don’t mean put that shit up on YouTube.
  • By now I’m sure you have either heard of or seen the video of the brutal beating
  • of Chrissy Lee Polis. Chrissy is a trans woman that stopped in a Rosedale, MD to use the bathroom and was told by a male employee there that she needed to buy something first. Without warning, she is attacked by two women, one claiming that Chrissy was “talking to her man”- her man being the oh so friendly guy behind the counter that made her buy something first.
  • Employees of the restaurant not only stood around and watched as the two pummeled her, one of them also stood there video taping the incident. He was also kind enough to stop laughing long enough to warn the girls “Y’all better get the fuck up outta here before the cops come” while he’s zooming in on the poor victim who is now mid-seizure from getting dragged across the restaurant by only her hair and beaten.  Then bitches about the fact she’s having a seizure on “his” floor.
  • If you were there, what would you have done?
  • One of my twitter followers posed “Are they trained to break up fights? What about liability issues?”  My thoughts on that- there comes a time where that simply doesn’t fuckin matter. An older woman (Vicky Thom) didn’t give a crap about that and she tried but got hit. If the person video taping it plus the at least 3 employees seen standing there watching all jumped in to contain the situation, it would have ended.
  • Cyber Bullying Statistics

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• The Intarwebs Got Broke (udg)
  • So, remember last week when we talked Cloud? Well, the sky fell last week when Amazon’s cloud network crashed, taking with it  a host of web 2.0 companies – including Reddit, Foursquare, Hootsuite  and thousands of others.  Oddly, two of Amazon’s biggest Web Services’ biggest customers- Netflix and Zynga were not affected by Crash 2.0.
  • Amazon EC2 was believed to be impossible to crash, after hacktivist group Anonymous failed to take it down in December. So what happened?
  • The company said that an early-morning “networking event” caused a cascade of problems that started with a glitch at its East Coast facility. The glitch made its servers automatically create back-ups of themselves which eventually led to crashes in that zone. After roughly 3 days, Amazon had everything under control, with one exception- about 0.07 percent of the data storage in its restored eastern cloud service isn’t fully recoverable. Needless to say this is going to shake the faith that many have in the all mighty cloud.
  • As if this weren’t enough, this rare phenomenon came on the same day as the massive PlayStation network went offline after a then unexplained outage that left 77 million users frustrated to say the least.
  • After going down several times at the end of February and outages throughout March, this is just the latest in a string of problems for the network. And it’s still down as they struggle to completely rebuild it
  • The outage wasn’t the most frustrating thing for PSN users, believe it or not. Instead it was the lack of communication from Sony. To make matters worse, after nearly a week, they finally announced to the public yesterday via the US PlayStation blog that this was indeed due to a massive breach. They stated the “illegal and unauthorized person” obtained people’s names, addresses, email address, birth dates, usernames, passwords, logins, security questions and more. With 77 million users and an estimated $500 mill in annual revenues just from this service,  this makes it one of the largest-ever Internet security break-ins.
  • Sony immediately shut down the network as soon as they learned the information had been stolen. The company said user account information for the PlayStation Network and its Qriocity service users was compromised between April 17 and April 19. Going undetected for several days is a huge red flag and probably accounts for the entire rebuild.
  • While they saw no evidence credit card numbers were stolen, Sony warned users it could not rule out the possibility.
  • “Out of an abundance of caution, we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained,” they said.
  • Sony said it has hired an “outside recognized security firm” to investigate. Of course I’m hoping that firm has no links to China.
  • The timing is also rather unfortunate for them. Monday night Sony unveiled its first two tablets. Like most Sony products they use access to its media networks as a selling point. In the case of these tablets, Qriocity, which was also highly compromised and is part of this ongoing outage.
  • The incidents involving Amazon and Sony are believed to be unrelated and Anonymous is claiming they nothing to do with it.

• Apple secretly tracking your Location (SM)
  • Lets not get hysterical now, It’s pretty muddy data
    • precision is lacking, aggregates by week, no personal info really
  • Why you should care that Apple tracks you
    • Its not that they are tracking, its that there’s a unencrypted history on your handset
    • I.E. a beacon for hackers
  • Guess What? Android is a Much Bigger Offender (udg)
    • Haters always gotta be hatin’. According to industry expert Christopher Soghoian, the iPhone reports your location data to Apple twice a day, but Android reports your location data back to Google several times per hour.
  • App to dump your android location information (SM)
  • Yep, they all do it … and that’s the big dirty secret
  • Most apps cache data and then re-use to help speed things up
  • When you connect to their backend db, guaranteed there is logging
  • Not something to declare armegeddon on but why the huge history on the local phone?
  • Don’t forget the file is also located unencrypted on whichever computer you back up your iPhone. Of course you could put a password on your phone and your computer, but that’s kinda complicated to do, right?(btm)

• AT&T Admits it can’t handle the iPhone (btm)
  • (SM)Thats like the pope admitting he’s Catholic… everyone already knew
  • Explains they need to buy T-Mobile to expand their network
  • iPhone produces 24 times the mobile network traffic than a conventional phone
  • Between 2007 (iPhone introduction) and 2010 mobile network volume jumped 8000%
  • They expect the first 5-7 weeks of 2015 will see more traffic than all of 2010
  • (btm) I wonder if putting iPhones on multiple carriers will help reduce the load or will all carriers see this kind of increase as people who avoided AT&T sign up?

• Valve Probably Done With Single Player Games (udg)
  • According to journalist Geoff Keighley’s Final Hours of Portal 2 iTunes app, Valve may be leaving its single player days behind.
  • “Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience. What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out,” wrote Keighly, relating a comment made by Valve founder Gabe Newell.
  • Valve’s Portal 2 introduced multiplayer to the Portal games through a two-player co-op mode. Most of their major games now feature some form of multiplayer mode. In fact, the company’s primary single-player-only experience Half-Life hasn’t seen anything new since 2007.
  • Even outside of Valve, single-player-only modes seem to be on their way out. Even Super Mario now includes second-player support. Series like Uncharted or BioShock that launched as solo-only have added multiplayer modes in their second installments. Capcom has been slowly but surely pushing it’s once single-player only series, Resident Evil into a vehicle for multiplayer.
  • The comment from Valve is striking, though, in that it doesn’t sound like Newell and Johnson said they’d probably never ship a game that didn’t have a multiplayer mode somewhere in it. Rather, they told Keighley they “probably” wouldn’t make a game “with an isolated single-player experience.” That would mean no more modes that couldn’t connect in some fashion to other people.

• Samsung / Apple Rivalry Heating Up (SM)
  • Apple slapped a lawsuit on Samsung for their Galaxy S and copyright violations
  • Funny thing, Samsung (South Korean) manufactures a lot of the IPhone parts
  • (SM) I own one and it DOES look like an IPhone plus the interface is pretty slick
  • Lets say they win… and have to pay a “licensing” fee, what does that mean for the rest of the industry?
  • Samsung has since fired back their own set of lawsuits on copyright infringement
  • Can their partnership last through all this litigation?

• Latest update makes Color Nook more tablet like than ever (btm)
  • Android 2.2 support
  • Flash
  • App Store
    • Angry Birds (SM) – this is a must… #srslyaddicted
  • built in email
  • Ability for authors to sign books?

• WikiLeaks at it Again (udg)
  • WikiLeaks has done another dump of confidential government and military documents. This time they focused on the Prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. In all 779 classified dossiers on current and former detainees were released.
  • New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and a number of other media outlets have published, either in whole or in part, these classified files. So, will the government pursue them for espionage charges like they are pursuing WikiLeaks?
  • The Obama administration condemned the leaks in a statement: “These documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information.”
  • In addition to shedding light on the actions of Al-Qaeda’s leadership before and after the 9/11 attacks, the documents pertain to the treatment of the detainees: While the Times reports that the documents “are largely silent about the use of the harsh interrogation tactics at Guantánamo — including sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions and prolonged exposure to cold temperatures — that drew global condemnation,” it also notes that many prisoners appear to have been held for long periods without cause.

• Old Republic Expected to turn a profit, But will it? (SM)
  • Old Republic is a Star Wars MMO done by the Bioware folks
  • These were the same folks who did BG and KOTOR
  • EA expects to draw 500,000 subs in the first year and make a profit
  • Investment firms expect a million from the company
  • Puts 12 million (wow) into perspective, right?
  • One big hitch… Free to play MMO’s are here (LOTRO,  DDO, etc)
  • Can a new sub without current user base survive?

• Look Out Groupon, Here Comes FaceBook (udg)
  • When FB launched “places,” first thought was they were trying to compete with 4sqr.
  • Now they’ve launched Deals. And, again, first glance may seem like 4sqr. But, FB’s Deals are actually like Groupon.  See, with 4sqr, checking in to a place may get you a free app or 10% off. With Deals, like Groupon, FB users will be able to buy a certificate for some goods or services at an extremely discounted rate (typically 50% off) for future use. And you’ll be able to use FB credits to buy them.
  • Facebook is starting with 5 cities- SF, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta and San Diego. Any FB user can sign up for Deals notifications and the users in these 5 test cities will be able to see and use Deals now.
  • We suspected Facebook had plans to bring Credits to the real world since around the time of f8, the company’s developer conference, when Facebook announced its ambitious Open Graph. Looks like this is the start.

• Open home Wi-Fi leads to FBI raid on wrong houses(btm)
  • FBI raided homes of those suspected of downloading child porn
  • After its investigation, FBI finds that neighbors using open Wi-Fi were the actual culprit
  • Wi-Fi Alliance says router security is like seat belts, it only works if you use it
  • Set a password on your router, seriously.

• Xbox to Have Streaming TV Service (udg)
  • Streaming TV may not seem like a new concept for the 360. Microsoft already allows it via AT&T’s U-verse service. But, it looks like they are in talks with major TV networks and could be branching out.  Right now they are reportedly working with Australian TV Network, Foxtel, in bringing a wallet-friendly cable package to the 360.
  • Reports also indicate there is quite a heated battle internally at Microsoft over this with many employees believing that the Xbox franchise should remain as a strictly gaming platform. Others argue it already does video streaming and should evolve into more than just games.
  • In a recent interview Ross Honey, head of content acquisition for Xbox, stated “Microsoft Xbox is very interested in delivering great entertainment to consumers, entertainment in the broadest sense. From our perspective, gaming and TV are going to coexist.”
  • Just recently, Microsoft brought Kinect support to the 360 for the Netflix app now allowing for voice or gesture control of the Netflix interface to select any content.
  • Perhaps the days of a console being used simply for gaming will be over. I think we started to see that already before this announcement came.

Intarweb Goldmine

• Tweeting election results in Canada will get you fined (btm)
  • 73 year old Canadian law makes it illegal to announce or send messages about election results until all polls are closed.
  • Carries a $25,000 fine and up to 5 years in jail.
  • Election officials won’t be actively monitoring the Twitter but if there are complaints they will investigate
  • Law originally intended to prevent radio stations from announcing East Coast results and potentially affecting West Coast elections where the polls were still open.

• Kid Not Guilty til he opens mouth on Facebook (SM)
  • Guy stops up sink in library at closing
  • Ppl don’t find the stopped sink until the next day
  • 200,000 dollars of damage later…
  • Kid gets on Facebook and brags about it and subsequently gets caught

• And the Stupid Tattoo of the Week Goes to… (udg)
  • L.A. County Sheriff homicide investigator Kevin Lloyd was flipping through tattooed gang members when he notice Anthony Garcia. Why? Well his tattoo depicted, in great detail, a 2004 liquor store murder scene.

• • Yup, every key detail was there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23 yo John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign- all under a huge banner that said “RIVERA KILLS.” Yeah, as in the gang Rivera-13.
  • It even gets creative with some screaming symbolism-  the helicopter shooting down what seems to be Mr. Peanut is a reference to the gang member’s alias, “Chopper,” while the lovable peanut mascot symbolizes a rival gang member, as the term “peanut” is a gang slang term for a rival gang member.
  • Apparently, the tattooed mural on the chest of Chopper–real name Anthony Garcia–evolved over time, with pictures of him taken at various points since the liquor store murder having new additions inked onto the scene. I’m guessing Chopper is now probably regretting his cockiness just a bit.

• Rules of Golfing During A German Bombing (udg)

• Computer opens grocery store, without employees (btm)
  • Grocery store was closed for Good Friday but computerized security system opened the doors on time at 8AM
  • 3 minutes later customers began shopping
  • Many honest customers used the self check-out lanes to pay.
  • Some realized there was no staff and left without paying
  • Owner is asking those that didn’t pay to fess up and pay. All money received will be donated to the Christchurch recovery effort.
  • Owner isn’t pressing charges yet, even though CCTV cameras recorded it all.

• Christ is Coming, get Tweeting (udg)
  • Could Facebook and Twitter be the salvation of man?
  • Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Christian evangelist Billy Graham thinks so according to the “prophecy” he gave ABC’s “This Week” host Christiane Amanpour.
  • “The Bible says that every eye is going to see [the Second Coming of Jesus],” Graham told Ammanpour. “How is the whole world going to see [him] all at one time? I don’t know, unless all of a sudden everybody’s taking pictures and it’s on the media worldwide. I don’t know. Social media could have a big part in that.”
  • The 58-year-old cited a verse that says Jesus will be coming on “a cloud and the whole world will moan.”
  • Graham was quick to point out that he is not saying Jesus will come back on Facebook or Twitter himself but instead he could make his announcement on the Silicon Valley social networks, or his arrival could quickly become a trending topic of the likes that no one has seen.

Extra Links

• Your IP address can be tracked to a half a mile
• Good reviews for latest version of MK
• The Little Guy Schools MTV
• Fukushima Reactor Battle Plan

• The original flying car for sale (btm)

• Last flight of the Endeavour (btm)
• Tesla CEO, Elon Musk will put a man on Mars in 10 years(btm)
• Who are you really talking to online? (btm)
  • Los Angeles woman met a Firefighter from Colorado in a message board for fans of HBO’s Deadwood
  • Began exchanging emails, letters, postcards, photos and talking everyday on the phone
  • Woman left her unhappy marriage but as she was preparing to move to Colorado was told that the Firefighter had died from Liver Cancer.
  • 7 months later her friends discovered the truth, the Firefighter, his son and 20 other family members were all characters created by a woman from the Chicago suburbs.
  • Chicago woman allegedly used a voice-altering device to disguise her voice and plotted out entire coordinating shorelines for her characters interacting with the LA woman.
  • Chicago woman had posed as a friend of the firefighter and introduced him to the LA woman becoming her friend
  • LA woman learned the truth while watching TV with the Chicago woman, who was visiting.
  • LA woman is now suing the Chicago woman.

• Hotel linens may have more bugs than you think (btm)
  • Hotels are now using specially designed RFID tags to prevent theft
  • tags can be sewn directly into towels, linens and bathrobes
  • Hotel in Hawaii has already saved $15,000 using the system
  • So far only the Hawaiian hotel and 2 others are using system
    • The hotels are remaining anonymous for security reasons

• Jersey Shore gone Wilde (btm)
  • Takes Jersey Shore transcripts adds Broadway actors and gives us re-enactments in the style of Oscar Wilde
  • Series of videos produced by Playbill.com
  • More entertaining than actual Jersey Shore

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Ben is @realityamuck , Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
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We are LIVE on Ustream . This week we talk content ownership, lots of new releases, plenty of apple news, and then a very special Chinese Conspiracy theory hour

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

• Ultimate Mashup: Angry Rebels & Imperial Pigs (udg)
  • A long time ago, on an app far, far away… The Imperial Pigs have stolen the Rebellion’s eggs, so the Rebellion struck back by stealing the plans for the Death Pig. Check out bite.ca for more of this great mashup. T shirts are even available.

• Rebecca Black Star Wars Parody (udg)
  • You’ve all seen the train wreck that is Friday. Most have seen the gazillion parodies running rampant. But, no matter how sick you are of it all, you have to watch this one last one. The words have all been changed and it is sheer awesomeness.

• World’s Biggest Pacman Game (udg)
  • Pac-man fan? Meet your new best friends Soap Creative. They’ve created The World’s Biggest Pac-Man game.  When I say World’s biggest- we’re talking it could take YEARS for one person to complete it. You see, it never stops growing. Users can create their own rooms for free and add them to the board.
  • Originally created to showcase the capabilities of Microsoft’s IE 9, you can choose to start in any room you want and hop over to other rooms even if you haven’t completed the room you are in. And the rooms so far range from simple to damnear impossible. Welcome to user-generated content.
  • Tallies are kept on a personal, regional and global level based on pellets and ghosts eaten and rooms cleared.

• For many April 19th marked the release of the much anticipated game, Portal 2, but for those of us who were fans of the canceled Sarah Conner Chronicles series we know it’s also the date that Skynet was brought online, meaning that April 21st will be Judgement Day. (btm)
  • Many gamer forums have already been asking if game developers chose the release date for this reason.
  • If you’re planning a Judgement Day party on Wednesday to celebrate the Skynet destruction of mankind, just remember, “The cake is a lie.”
    • (our local mall has a cell phone store called “Skynet” maybe I should make signs and protest our destruction?) (btm)
  • If you’re listening to the recorded version of this podcast after the 21st, find John Conner, he’s your only hope.

• Time Lapse Milky Way plus more!
  • Gorgeous video of the Milky way and the clouds over a large span of time
  • I’m such a space nut… the music is nice too

• Top 10 Zombie Music Videos
  • Nothing says loving like zombies, guts, blood, and good music
  • Grouper “Alien Observer” (lesbian zombies ‘nuff said), Kanye West “Monster” (hot zombies), Peaches and Iggy Pop “Kick it”, Aesop Rock “Coffee”

Gold Sponsors:

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• Want to wow all your friends with off-the-wall Movie Trivia?
• Want to know more about Geek History and share them with your friends?
• Today in Geek History and Today in Movie History are for you
• Both have been out on the Android Marketplace for awhile now
• After a long vetting period, Today in Movie History is now available on ITunes!!!
• (BTM) Happy BIrthday George Takei- I found this out from my newly downloaded Geek History app.
• Go check out both apps, TIGH  and TIMH, now available on both Android and IPhone

Natali’s Etsy!!!

• Need your noms????
• @UberDorkGirlie’s etsy is the way to go
• Whether it’s Woookie Cookies, Bark Maul, or Hothballs, every sweet tooth needs to try them out
• Need a present and don’t want to bake? then Natali’s Etsy store is the way to go

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• How to Get in On Gears of War 3 Beta (udg)
  • Last week the Epic Game’s latest chapter Gears of War saga, Gears of War 3 beta went live. The early access beta started this weekend and will run through April 24 when the full public beta opens and runs to May 15.
  • The web is rampant with official and unofficial ways to get access to the beta. We’re going to give you the real (and safest) way to get in on it. Most people playing the beta right now are players who got their beta codes with their purchase of Bulletstorm: Epic Edition, which will still get you a code if you can find a copy on the shelves.
  • You can also follow developer and Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) and Epic Games Vice President and Co-Founder Mark Rein (@MarkRein) on Twitter: they both have been giving out codes to their followers all weekend, and show no signs of stopping. If you don’t get in on the beta before the 24th though, don’t worry: if you pre-order Gears of War 3, you’ll get a beta code that you can redeem on the 25th to join the fun.
  • So far, reviews on the beta has been impressive and it’s being considered a great update to an already well polished and established series.

• Celebrate Earth Day with Geeky Style. Several companies offering Solar Powered backpacks that charge your hand-held devices (btm)
  • 4 Watts of Solar Power from 1 hour in the sun = 3 hours of talk time,
  • 4-5 hours in the sun will fully charge a typical phone
  • Battery that offers up to 19 hours talk time or 48 hours music playback
  • Prices range from mid-$200 to well over $300

• Win a Copy of The Avengers: The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Vol. 1 & 2 (udg)
  • Our friends over at Big Shiny Robot are giving away The Avengers: The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes Vol 1 & 2 on DVD.  The contest runs through Friday April 29th with winners being announced on Monday, May 2nd.
  • To enter, just shoot them an email over at editor at bigshinyrobot.com. Make sure you put “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!” in the subject line.
  • Want some extra chances? Head over to their facebook page and invite all of your friends to like ‘em. Or you can ask your followers on twitter to follow us @BigShinyRobot. Just be sure to mention when you  email them that you’ve done it.

• Beastie Boys New Album: Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
  • May 3rd release date, so pumped
  • Digital pre-sales will be delivered the “day-of”

• Read Eisner nominee for Best Humor Publication, Aphrodisiac, for Free (udg)
  • The folks over at AdHouse were super excited to hear Aphrodisiac was nominated for an Eisner. Unfortunately, they are in between printing. They wanted to make sure that all voters had a chance to read it, so they put it online for free!

• New Movie Releases
  • IP MAN 2!!!!! – Watch this back-to-back with Ip Man #awesomekungfu
  • Goemon – Robin Hood with Ninjas and Kung Fu
  • Mortal Kombat BR
  • Captain Planet and the Planeteers (Season 1)
  • Tokyo Gore Police – Yoshihiro Nishimura and “unbridled horror insanity + fetishism” (You can check it out on Netflix streaming now. udg)

• Irredeemable for $0.99 an Issue! (udg)
  • Now through tomorrow night at 11pm E, ComiXology has their critically acclaimed series Irredeemable for just $0.99 an issue.
  • Like to actually hold the paper? Their physical copy of Irredeemable: Vol 1 (issues 1-4) is on sale for $4.
  • Never heard of Irredeemable? It’s by Mark Waid & Peter Krause and basically about a Superman-like hero that spends a lifetime protecting earth. Until the day he snaps, decides humanity needs a good wake-up slap and begins taking out his former teammates who are the biggest.

Movie Minute (new feature)

• We Were All Wrong- New Dark Knight Rises Roles Revealed (udg)
  • We’ve known for a while now that Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotilliard were signed on to The Dark Knight Rises. Knowing that, we made our own lil assumptions about who they’d be playing. We figured Marion would be playing Talia al Ghul (daughter of Ra’s al GHul and Bruce Wayne love interest) and JGL would be Alberto Falcone AKA “The Holiday Killer.” Guess what happens when we assume? Yeah, we’re not so cleaver it seems.
  • After MONTHS and months of us assuming away, Warner Bros & Christopher Nolan have officially announced Joseph and Marion have joined that cast. They’ve also told us who they will be playing. Marion will be playing Miranda Tate, “a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham” and Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play John Blake, “a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon”.

• Pride, Prejudiced & Zombies Gets a Director (udg)
  • If for some odd reason you haven’t heard of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it’s a novel set in the same world as the classic Jane Austen novel, but the main characters Ms. Bennet and good ole Mr. Darcy are fighting off a Zombie infestation.
  • And it looks like it may finally be coming to a theater sometime soonish. Seems third time may be a charm, as Craig Gillespie (known for the new Fright Night) has been officially set in stone to direct the film.
  • “We are so excited to have Craig Gillespie on board this film. His sensibility spans from genre bending horror to elegant character driven comedy, which is perfect for this movie.” glows  Alli Shearmur, Lionsgate’s president of production
  • Hopefully he’s still excited after Criag let it slip in an EW interview that the script he’ll be using came from David O. Russell, that guy who just got a ton of acclaim for a little picture called The Fighter.
    • No, we have a really great script that we’re just going to do a polish on and then get going, really…. David Russell wrote the script off the book, and it has such a great mix of humor and horror.
  • It isn’t clear when production will begin on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, although with a director finally locked in, it seems they are ramping up to start filming soon.
• Full body shot of new Green Lantern CGI costume (btm)
  • This just confirms my fears about the CGI costume.
  • Put on some freaking boots!
    • (does anyone really need to see Ryan Reynolds toes?)
• Game of Thrones renewed already
  • Series adaptation of popular books by George R.R. Martin “A song of Ice and Fire”
  • First episode got strong critical acclaim
  • 4.2 million viewers on a PPV channel is WAAAY Strong
  • Already committed to a second season

Geek Speak

• The End of Content Ownership
  • the cloud is becoming more prominent as of late
  • Netflix, Zune, Amazon, everyone wants to push the “rent” model for content
  • New services, such as 24 symbols, will offer “streaming” books
  • Is the lack of ownership of for monetary outlay alarming or just par for the course?
  • (SM) Zune and Netflix ownership
  • (btm) What do we really “own” any more? A lot of software you buy seems to write their EULAs in a way that says you’re actually leasing the software vice owning it. Even if you buy the disk and have everything local on your machine it’s not really yours.
    • Blizzard recently banned players for cheating in Single Player Campaign mode in StarCraft II and disabled their CD keys.
      • (I’m totally behind banning cheaters online in Battle.net, but what gives you the right to do anything pertaining to what I do offline?)
    • Two years ago Amazon deleted copies of 1984 from Kindles
      • Big Brother much?
      • Kindle TOS says you’re entitled to keep a permanent digital copy of any digital content you purchase (section 3, paragraph 2)
        • (I guess it’s permanent until they change their minds)
    • What happens when you don’t or can’t pay your monthly cloud access fee?
      • Who controls access? Google and most other cloud providers will turn over your information upon receiving a warrant from the government. Don’t fall for the “If you’re not doing anything wrong you don’t have to worry” myth.

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

• Rep Jesse Jackson Jr Blames iPad for US Job Loses(udg)
  • Illinois Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr went on an insane anti-technology rant on the floor of Congress on Friday. You see, he thinks “technology gadgets like the iPad” are the reason this country is losing jobs.
  • His rant:
    • “A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad, download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine.”
      • Okay. Let’s stop right there for a moment. Dear Jessie- Yes, that iPad can download your books, newspapers, magazines, etc. But, do you REALLY think the $500 iPad is to blame? What about the oh $100 Kindle? Or B&N’s own Nook? Or the publishers that even format for mobile devices?  Just a thought. Let’s hear what else you got, oh wise one…

• “Chicago State University, in my congressional district, in freshman class, they are not being given textbooks any longer. They are all being given iPads as they enter school. President Wayne Watson hopes to have a textbook-less campus in four years, where at this state university they will no longer have textbooks.”
  • Oh Jessie. When is the last time you went to college? If I could carry one device that stored all of my textbooks in it, in a format I could highlight, copy and paste notes out of, etc., yeah, that would be the way I would go.  I’ll spare you the more economically and environmentally sound dance because you’re clearly not in the mindset to even remotely grasp that right now. And you’ll probably just add out of work lumberjacks to your next rant.
    • “Well, what becomes of publishing companies and publishing company jobs?”
      • Umm, Jessie, people still need to write, edit, format and distribute the books.

• • • “And what becomes of bookstores and librarians and all of the jobs associated with paper?”
      • Okay, I’ll give you a 1/2 a point there. I do fear the loss of libraries in this country. But, it’s not the iPad’s fault. The problem does not solely lie on the manufacturers of any of the devices.
    • “Well, in the not too distant future, such jobs simply will not exist. Steve Jobs is doing pretty well. He’s created the iPad. Certainly, it has made life more efficient for Americans, but the iPad is produced in China. It is not produced here in the United States. So, the Chinese get to take advantage of our First Amendment value — that is to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people. But there is no protection for jobs here in America to ensure that the American people are being put to work.”
      • Jinkies. Look Jessie, 10 minutes with me and I’ll break it down to you how the Chinese are going to take over the entire world via the use of technology. But that craziness is too out there for even me.  Before you get your lil knickers in a bunch and decide to have a case of diarrhea of the mouth/constipation of the brain regarding technology and the Chinese, gimme a call. We’re neighbors. I’ll meet you for coffee and give ya a lil education. Don’t worry, I’ll leave my evil MacBook at home. Well, maybe.

• Adobe Relents, Adopts Apple Video Protocol (SM)
  • Remember how adobe moaned about using Apples video standard?
  • Flash currently uses RTSP (a proprietary format for file transmission)
  • Apple uses HTTP live streaming along with H.264 as its video format
  • It was at least submitted to standards body
  • M$ immediately added it to it’s venerable IIS platform so that when requesting video from iPad, they get that format
  • Adobe now has added it to their Flash media server in a “commitment to develop technologies that simplify broadcast workflows to make it simpler to reach a fragmented lineup of devices”.
  • I.E. They’re tired of trying to convince Apple to include Flash on their platform

• Apple suing Samsung for Patent Infringements (btm)
  • Filed suit last Friday
    • (reminds me of the Apple vs. Windows “look and feel” lawsuit WRT Windows 3 and the Macintosh OS.)
  • Claims Samsung’s Galaxy tablet and S phone are too similar to iPad and iPhone
    • “Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smartphone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products.”
  • If this law suit is successful, what does it mean for other smart phone and tablet makers?

• China’s Silent Cyber Takeover (udg)
  • The Chinese have this game galled Go. One of it’s proverbs is “Play on the Point of Symmetry.” Which means, when right and left have the same shape, there’s play in the center. And it looks like that’s a pretty good metaphor for how China and Russia (*cough Red Dawn *cough*) are leveraging US multinational corporations to accomplish strategic goals that are looking like they include covert technology transfer of intellectual property, access to source code for use in malware creation and backdoor access to critical infrastructure.
  • Let’s take a look at Chinese entity Huawei Symantec. Now Huawei has been reportedly blocked by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) in its attempt to acquire 3Leaf and AT&T was said to be officially discouraged from purchasing any equipment from them by the National Security Agency. Both of these events are based on security concerns. Huawei successfully formed a joint venture with Symantec in 2007 called Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. (HS). Huawei is the majority partner with 51 percent ownership, with the entity being headquartered in Chengdu, China.
  • If you aren’t familiar with Symantec thereby not so sure what Huawei is, they’re the leading provider of network security and storage appliance solutions to enterprise customers worldwide. Yup, worldwide.
  • Add to this a 2008 corporate briefing of theirs that describes the history, capabilities, and business goals of HS, one of which is to ‘build China’s first laboratory of attack and defense for networks and applications.’
  • This equation pretty much means that Symantec, a major US information security company, is ‘assisting’ China’s cyber security research in computer network attack and defense — research that has high potential for abuse by state and non-state actors in China.
  • The plot thickens. In the last few months, HS has formed two new joint ventures with US companies — SYNNEX and Force10 Networks. Why? With SYNNEX, the goal is apparently to ‘distribute Huawei Symantec’s storage and security products to its resellers throughout North America.’
  • For Force10 Networks, Huawei Symantec said the firm ‘is pleased to establish this strategic partnership with Force10 Networks, and expects the relationship to further drive strong results for our existing North American customer base as well as tap into new business opportunities.’
  • The kicker- both SYNNEX and Force10 Networks currently sell to the US government.
  • Force10 Networks’ website says that they sell their products to ‘defense, intelligence and civilian agencies to advance the bandwidth needs and reliability demands of government IT infrastructure while ensuring the economics and performance of mission critical networks.’
  • Since Huawei’s growth strategy includes financial support from Chinese banks that enable it to offer very low cost bids on key contracts, and since many governments (including India and the United States) have legal provisions that require them to go with the lowest bidder, these partnerships provide an apparently winning strategy for SYNNEX and Force10 Networks to secure government sales thanks to Huawei Symantec’s low manufacturing costs – all without HS’s name likely ever having to appear on the contract.
  • So, even though Huawei is publicly blocked by US lawmakers from selling directly to the US government, they have played on the ‘point of symmetry’ and quietly secured access to US Defense Department and intelligence community customers through collaborative partnerships that no one has so far contested. With their boast of a 30% increase in profit over this last year, Huawai’s business has been really good.
  • It’s not just China that seems to be placing itself in an advantageous strategic position.
  • I highly encourage you to check out the link in the shownotes and read more on the Russians, Intel, a laboratory and how they eliminated the need for espionage.

• Armenia makes Chess mandadory in school (SM)
  • Little Tiny Armenia is making themselves into a Chess power house
  • How? They’re requiring the game as part of their school curriculum
  • Theory: “Fosters schoolchildren’s intellectual development and teaches to think flexibly and wisely”
  • Most chess players are treatest like super stars in the country
  • Already a powerhouse: They won gold in 2006 and 2008 in International competition
  • Levon Aronian is currently ranked number 3 in the world in the WCF

• President says White House Tech is “30 Years out of date” (btm)
  • We’ve all seen the super high-tech equipment the President uses in movies and on TV but apparently that’s all TV magic and special effects.
  • “You know the Oval Office always thought I was going to have like real cool phones and stuff,” Obama said last night, “You know, we can’t get our phones to work!  I’m like ‘come on guys, I’m the president of the United States.’  Where’s the fancy buttons and stuff, and the big screen comes up? It doesn’t happen.”
  • “I mean our IT and purchasing is horrible,” he added, “And this is true across the board. This is true at the Pentagon,  it’s true in the agencies, it’s true in the Department of Homeland security.”
  • (No fancy Jack Bauer phones I guess.)

• Match.Com Now to Check Users Against Sex Offender Database (udg)
  • Following a lawsuit filed against them last week, dating giant Match.com has decided that in the next 3 months, they will begin checking users against sex offender databases.
  • The suit was filed by a California woman that states she was attacked by a man she met on the site. According to her, the first date went fine and the man seemed charming. Second date, not so much. She alleges he forced her to have sex with him. The man has been convicted of sexual battery.
  • Mark Webb, the attorney for the woman, identified in the lawsuit only as “Jane Doe” stated that a check like the one Match.com will be implementing could have prevented his client’s attack.
  • Mandy Ginsberg, president of Match.com told The Associated Press in an email that the company had considered such screenings for years, but “their historical unreliability has always led us to conclude against it.”
  • Ginsberg said after talking to providers and advisers the last few days, company officials decided to make a change. He further warned
  • “We want to stress that while these checks may help in certain instances, they remain highly flawed, and it is critical that this effort does not provide a false sense of security to our members,” she said, adding that members should always plan for a first-meeting to be in public and should tell a friend where they’ll be.
  • I applaud Match.com for taking such an effort. In all honesty, I think that the woman’s case would fail to hold up in court. The fact the site chose to make the huge change rather than fight it is to be respected.

• Portal 2 Early Release Program, Genius or Crass? (SM)
  • Anybody remember the Humble Bundle 1 and 2 (pay as much or little)
  • Kickstarter for games: Creavures (game rewards for donating)
  • Pay $40 for an Indy Bundle (13 games), win a possibility to get early release of P2?
  • Buy and it adds to the processing for a faster reboot of GLaDOS, the original evil computer in the old game
  • Whats the point? Is that a worthy goal to spend double for a game that will come out anyways?
  • (btw, the promotion was a failure,

• Samsung developing a 2GHz, Dual Core Smartphone (btm)
  • “This product will have the data processing capabilities of a regular PC”
  • Considering separate sales of the CPU units to other companies (btm.. I’m guessing not Apple).

• Square Credit Card Reader Now Available Via Apple (udg)
  • Jack Dorsey is a busy guy. Not only has the Twitter co-founder returned to Twitter as its CEO, he still remains CEO of Square, his mobile payment company.
  • Square, in simplest terms, allows anyone with an Android or iPhone to process credit card transactions. No fees, no monthly contracts. Square keeps it simple with a 2.75% charge per transaction. It works through a free downloadable app and a small device, shaped like- you guessed it a square, that plugs into a smartphone’s audio jack and reads the credit cards. To put their fee in perspective, Paypal charges 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction up to $3,000 in month and then goes down from there.
  • As you can imagine, VeriFone, a company that offers businesses traditional credit card terminals, was none too thrilled with this. It accused Square of offering a free credit card reader that could easily be used by hackers to steal credit card info. Square responded by pointing out that the vulnerability was no different than someone simply writing down your credit card information on a piece of paper. Yet, even with that bit of bad press courtesy of VeriFone, Dorsey’s company got a huge boost recently thanks to a new partnership with Apple.
  • Apple is now offering Square’s credit card reader through its online and brick-and-mortar stores. Customers will pay $9.95 for the credit card reader which includes $10 of Square credit. While the credit card reader is available for free through Square’s website, the immediate availability of it through Apple retail stores and the notable placement of the reader on Apple’s online store is sure to spur adoption. Apple’s endorsement of Square also minimizes the security concerns VeriFone attempted to raise last month in its attempt to derail adoption of the service since it greatly threatens VeriFone’s current business model.
  • I can wait. So, I went to the site and ordered mine for free. And, it did require giving them quite a bit of hefty personal information to obtain. I’ve got the app downloaded and ready to go. The site said 2-5 weeks so as soon as I get it, I’ll make sure to review it.

• Next Mars Rover to use Rocket Crane to land (btm)
  • Mars Rover “Curiosity” lands via being lowered from flying platform
  • Set to launch late this year for arrival on Mars in August 2012
  • Equiped with laser for examining rock samples found on Mars.
  • (btm…once it lands it looks like it has a lot of interesting new tools, but getting it to land scares the crap out of me. There are so many possible points of failure that it seems to me that NASA has forgotten the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid)

Intarweb Goldmine

• Man Bursts Into Flames at Porn Store (udg)
  • For seven years, Roger Huang, a pastor who runs a rescue mission in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, has been trying to shut down the sex shops there. This week he may have seen a sign that his efforts are working
  • On Wednesday, a man burst into flames while inside one of those porn shops, police said.
  • Could this bizarre incident be attributed to a higher power?
  • “I believe so. I definitely believe so,” Huang told AOL News, adding that he hopes the unidentified man is recovering from the burns.
  • The police aren’t ruling anything out.
  • “We don’t know what caused it,” Lt. Troy Dangerfield of the San Francisco Police Department told AOL News. “It’s still under investigation.”
  • Witnesses reportedly saw the burning man running out of the Golden Gate Adult Superstore in the city’s South of Market neighborhood at about 6:20 p.m. Wednesday. The man ran past stunned onlookers and collapsed at the corner of Mission and Sixth streets, police said. A private ambulance crew happened  be driving by and extinguished the flames.
  • The man, whose name has not been released, was taken to the burn center at St. Francis Memorial Hospital, where he is being treated for first-, second- and third-degree burns that reportedly cover 90 percent of his body.
  • According to KTVU, an employee said the man had been watching a film in the back of the store when he suddenly ran out screaming and on fire.
  • San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy  Talmadge said a fire investigator is still looking into the case. Oddly, she said authorities have found “no damage to the inside of the building at all.”

• Social Security website releases new series of ‘spacey’ PSA messages (btm)
  • Series stars Patty Duke and George Takei
  • Intended to raise awareness and help aging Boomers feel more at ease when using socialsecurity.gov to file for claims & benefits
    • (I love that the website actually says, “These Social Security public service announcements (PSAs) are pre-recorded video messages that can be viewed online” sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everyone is as tech savvy as we are.) (btm)

• Not the Brightest Car Thief (SM)
  • Guy comes in for a free gas voucher from the police
  • Presents his paperwork for the car
  • Police run it and find out the car is stolen
  • This isn’t the only one, criminals are constantly nabbed for winning sweepstakes

• The National Institute of Standards and Technology needs your help (btm)
  • In its 110 years, NIST has made many innovations in the way we measure things, from basic quantities like the volt and nanometer to specialized questions like the purity of sugar.
  • Website shows images of many devices in their care
  • Many look almost SteamPunk in nature
  • For many, their original uses have been lost to the ages. Do you know what they were? (btm… my favorite is “wooden box with multiple terminals and dials”

• Put Your Hands in the Air and Back Away From the Potatoes (udg)
  • In Jacksonville, Fla., don’t try breaking into someone’s home with potatoes on the stove.
  • Eighty-one-year-old Bobby Smith said his caretaker came out of his home and informed him an intruder had broken into the home.
  • Smith said he entered his home and found a man with a gun in one hand and items he intended to steal in the other. The intruder than shoved Smith to the ground and took his wallet.
  • Not a good idea. Smith then got up and hit the man on the head with frying pan full of potatoes, The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union reported.
  • “I grabbed the frying pan and hit him upside the head,” the feisty octogenarian said. “I knocked his teeth out … and he went to the floor.” Then, for a bit of emphasis, “There was a pitchfork about 6 feet away … [and] I stuck him.”
  • Get down with your bad self Bobby Smith. And don’t ever, ever try to steal that man’s taters.

• YouTube Copyright School (btm)
  • Provides “Happy Tree Friends” video to educate users on copyright rules
  • Copyright violators required to watch video much like the old driving school videos for traffic violators.
  • Hopes that requiring copyright violators to watch video will help them to understand what they did was wrong and prevent future violations.

• Dammit! Swearing found to help increase pain tolerance (btm)
  • Keele University study shows swearing can produce painkilling effect
  • Volunteers placed hands in bucket of ice water while swearing repeatedly
  • Repeated the test but this time used non-swearing phrase to repeat
  • Volunteers were able to keep hands in ice water longer when swearing.
  • Study found that volunteers who normally didn’t swear were four times as likely to feel painkilling effect.
  • May be a reason why swearing developed and continues to today.

Extra Links

• Lucas’ New Sandcrawler Office (udg)
• Droid X WoW

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