We are LIVE on Ustream . Tonight we talk WikiLeaks, Death of 2 legends, Some gift ideas, and even some really weird Intarweb.

Intro Jeremy
Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• Awesome Star Wars Crossover Movie Posters (udg)
  • Matthew Ranzetta, graphic designer and geek, has put together some beautiful works of fan fiction. Well the mashed-up posters for the movie versions of it.
  • Check them out and make sure you click to get the version big enough to read the tag lines.  And now you can buy prints of them or a T!!! Check it out here.
• Got an Extra $55,000 laying around? get a Street Legal Tron LightCycle!!! (JP)
  • So just a quick update to my Christmas Wishlist… anyone purchasing this as a gift for me. email for the delivery address! (and Thanks!)

• HOLY TARDIS BED!!(udg)
  • This is way awesome! Some of the fancy features include lighting, secret buttons that change the colors of lights and make it make the Tardis sound and the phone actually talks. A definite must for a Dr. Who fan who has a kid that is a Dr. Who fan and has $3,500 to spare.
• The infamous Leroy Jenkins…. (JP)

• Zombie eat flesh T-Shirt

• Gotta Catch ‘em All (SM)

Gold Sponsors:

UberDorkCafe

• Will be THE place for Geeks to hang out
• What is UberDorkCafe? It is the brain child and DREAM of Natali, aka @UberDorkGirlie from twitter, and it blends art + science = geek
• Place to hang, eat, have awesome kid parties (if thats your thing), or to get your gaming on
• Woookie Coookies – a piece of UDC before there is even a physical cafe
• THE AUCTIONS ARE HERE!!
• Black Friday Launch of Gift Baskets!

• Today in Geek History
  • JebsApps (owned by our own Jeremy Puent) released their latest app, Today in Geek History
  • Gives you factoids based upon date, spanning all sorts of geekiness
  • For example, did you know on 12/1/1959 Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Starship Troopers is published in hardcover.
  • This app is available for Android in a Lite version for free or a paid version, all on the Marketplace
  • Check out the lite version, but the paid version for .99
  • Also, Golden Pic and Golden Pic Lite for Android devices
    • Golden Pic has some huge updates released this past Sunday Bookmarking locations, mapping to those locations (driving or walking)
    • The Lite version gained the ability to change location via two methods as well.
    • Plus we put it on sale again for the holidays!!! only $1.79 USD through new Years! Get it now!

• Childs Play 2010 now open

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Norah Jones on Hulu?
• New DVD / Blu-Rays
  • The Expendables (BR)
  • The Complete Metropolis (BR) – One of the seminal sci-fi films that inspired Star Wars and Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
  • Deadwood the Complete Series (BR)
  • Batman Beyond: The Complete Series (BR)
  • Fantasia / Fantasia 2000
• 4th Amendment Undies (JP)
  • This is an awesome must have. Undies, Bra, Panties Boxers or TShirt with Metallic ink printed 4th amendment on it, Why you ask? it shows up on the XRay when they full body scan you at the airport!
  • One more goodie for the little ones this Holiday Season… Battle Bands.
    • It’s a game for kids 6+ that is like a modern day Marbles game of sorts…
    • it comes with a board (Battle Mat) and some collectable bands (different colors, shapes, etc… you can wear them like bracelets, then take them off and play with them… play for points or play for keeps!
    • I had fun messing with it, but since Ender is too young to truely enjoy I only had a so-so time… I could see the fun, and imagine if he had been older we would have had a blast. I will be handing these over to Steven when he arrives in a week so he can play with his little guy and we’ll see how much fun they have!

Geek Speak

• Wikileaks at it again (udg)
  • In what is now being referred to as “Cablegate”, Wikileaks began this past Sunday to publish 251,287 leaked US embassy cables. This is the largest set of confidential documents ever to be release in a public domain.
  • They range in date from 1966 to as recently as February of this year.  Really? We still send cables???
  • According to Wikileaks, these cables “show the extent of US spying on its allies and the UN, turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights abuse in “client state”. backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries, lobbying for US corporations and the measures US diplomats take to advance those who have access to them.
  • These cables  originate from 274 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions.
  • There are two schools of thought on this. One that it is nothing more than petty gossip and material for TMZ. The other is that us citizens and the world have the right to know the truth.
  • What is the truth though? Even a simple email can be misinterpreted by many different people.  We all bitch about our boss, our neighbors, heck even our best friend at times. Will the context of these all be clear?

• WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange wanted in connection with  sex crime investigation in Sweden. (udg)
  • The international police organization Interpol has issued a Red Notice for the arrest of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, in connection with a sex crime investigation in Sweden.
  • A court approved an international arrest warrant for the ex-hacker for crimes such as rape, coercion and molestation, at which point Sweden reportedly applied to Interpol for the Red Notice. Assange’s lawyer appealed the detention order to the Svea Court of Appeal, but lost. Assange filed a new appeal yesterday to the Swedish Supreme Court.
  • The investigation stems from separate encounters Assange had with two women during his August visit to Sweden, where he was applying for Swedish residency and attempting to secure the protection of Swedish free-press laws for his secret-spilling website. According to local news reports, the women told investigators the sexual encounters began as consensual, but turned non-consensual.
  • Assange has denied any wrongdoing, and hinted that the complaints are the result of a U.S. “smear campaign” targeting WikiLeaks — leading some supporters of the group to publicly investigate the two women and their families.
  • After the investigation began, Assange left Sweden with the permission of the government, and then turned up in London in October, where he unveiled nearly 400,000 leaked U.S. Army documents from the Iraq war.
  • On Sunday, he outraged top U.S. officials and sent shock waves through the world of global diplomacy when he began rolling out a leak of a quarter-million U.S. State Department diplomatic cables that revealed the private views of U.S. diplomats towards foreign leaders around the world.
  • The Obama administration is exploring possible criminal charges against Assange under the Espionage Act,The Washington Post reported Monday — in what would be a virtually unprecedented move against a journalistic organization.
  • In a statement earlier this month, Assange’s British counsel said that his client repeatedly offered to cooperate with local investigators while he was in Sweden, and has offered to answer questions remotely from Britain since then.
  • “All of these offers have been flatly refused by a prosecutor who is abusing her powers by insisting that he return to Sweden at his own expense to be subjected to another media circus that she will orchestrate,” wrote attorney Mark Stephens. “Pursuing a warrant in this circumstance is entirely unnecessary and disproportionate.”

• WikiLeak’s next step? Look out public sector, some banks could go down. (udg)
  • First WikiLeaks spilled the guts of government, now their sites seem locked on the private sector, starting with at least one major American bank.
  • In an exclusive interview, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Forbes that his whistleblower site will release tens of thousands of documents from a major US financial firm in the early part of 2011.
  • He mentioned Goldman Sachs by name in the interview, but did not confirm the Wall Street giant is the target of the leak. In fact he wouldn’t state anything exactly. What date, what bank, what documents. He did, however compare it to the emails that emerged during the Enron Trial.
  • “You could call it the ecosystem of corruption” said Assange “But it’s also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices; the oversight that’s not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they’re fulfilling their own self-interest.”
  • He also alluded to having materials on other businesses- including pharmaceutical companies.
  • If you thought the Pentagon was working hard to get Wikileaks shutdown, wait until the Federal Reserve gets involved.
  • JP – It’s gonna be tough for them to do now… Since they are looking for a new virtual home. just hours before the show… Amazon pulled them from their servers.

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• Death comes in 3’s??? (SM)
  • RIP Irvin Kershner
    • Director who made ESB the best Star Wars Film died at 87 the other day
    • Turned down the director’s chair for RoTJ
    • How did he make ESB not suck? He sequestered himself and ignored Lucas
    • Also directed other greats such as “Never Say Never Again” and “Robocop II”
  • Leslie Nielsen, Dead at 84
    • Died quietly his his sleep, he was 84 years old
    • One of the great film comedians of our time
    • Famous for spoofs such as Airplane, “The Naked Gun” series and “Police Squad”
    • How could you not like the over-the-top humor???
  • ???? where’s the third?

• PCMag Stands up to RIAA (SM)
  • Limewire, a P2P service, was taken down recently so PCMag did a story on alternatives
  • Well, the RIAA didn’t like it and sent a letter expressing “deep disappointment for publishing said article
  • RIAA’s stance? “PCMag is slyly encouraging people to steal more music”
  • PCMag’s stance? “We covered these Limewire alternatives because we knew they would be of interest to our readers. We understand that some might use them to illegally download content. We cannot encourage that action, but also cannot stop it. Reporting on the existence of these services does neither.”
  • Does an article about alternatives to a P2P service in fact encourage piracy?

• (for UDG) Chinese Tamper with DNS (JP)
  • The chinese have used their Domain Name Servers to censor sites
  • Due to the global impact of the Internet, 57% of all networks passed requests through a Chinese root server in 2010
  • If the censored site gets requested, a user will get a bad request, even though they don’t live in China
  • Bad JooJoo when combined with the recent  Internet routing and packet capturing snafu

• (SM)Facebook to own the term ‘Face’
  • Patent office agrees to a trademark of the word “Face” to facebook
  • It’s only under certain conditions, they have to pay a nominal fee, and only after they use it in their marketing
  • Uses: “Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars.”
  • What a weird trademark to get on a very common word.
    • (JP) Interesting the use of chatrooms… how will this affect Apple’s FaceTime??? I see yet another lawsuit in the works…

• Student Googles Himself & Finds He’s Guilty of Murder (udg)
  • A University of Florida student is relieved to know deputies aren’t searching for him…but he’s still in shock that the Polk County Sheriff’s Office erroneously released his photo in connection to a September murder.
  • Investigators originally released a driver’s license photo of Zachary Garcia — spelled with an “A” — but it was Zachery Garcia — spelled with an “E” — who was charged in connection with the crime.
  • Garcia with an a learned about the error after searching for his name on Google.com. “I was just very shocked to find my picture and the article saying that I was convicted of a felony murder charge,” he said, “and I was just very shocked and angry that someone put my name up there and said I did something I didn’t do.” “Everybody makes mistakes,” Garcia added. “I work at Publix and I might get somebody’s sub (order) wrong. But for somebody to get (the photo of a suspect) wrong…it’s not a sandwich, it’s somebody’s life you’re playing with.”
    • (JP) This is why I have never ever Googled myself… I’m afraid to find out what I’ve done…

• Online Cyber Monday Sales Top 1 Beeellion (JP)
  • Up 12% from last year to $1.03 billion dollars for a single day
  • New record for online sales in 1 day
  • November sales up 13% to $13.55 billion
  • Despite the large numbers, it’s still only 8-10% of total holiday sales
  • Cyber Monday got its name in 2005 when National Retail Federation trade group nicknamed it because ppl were returning to work and using their work computers to buy stuff online.

• Even Spiderman can’t save his own musical (SM)
  • The reviewers got to see the screening of the play
  • It was almost 4 hrs long
  • The stage was literally falling apart and there were constant stops
  • Acting, costumes, and action was way over the top…
  • some of the reviews:
  • “I hated it. The fashion show was horrible. All of the villians looked horrible. That whole love thing with Arachne made no sense whatsoever. They also had 4 kids in Act 1 basically talking about what was happening and then somehow in Act 2 they end up really being in the story. The book is a total cluster[frick]. A U2 song made it into the show as well. Arachne also sings a song about her shoes. Awful. Just awful.”
  • “Ok, I have no idea what I just witnessed. It was a total incoherent mess. Taymor seems to have gotten so caught up in the symbolism and fx that she forgot to include a story. innovative at times, but soulless always. I’ll write more later but now i need a drink to clear my head.”
  • “Oh. Plot. Right. That thing that supposedly was there but only Julie Taymor could understand because she wrote it in her alien language on her alien planet. ACT I was understandable. ACT II was bizarre. It was completely lost. The show is meant to be meaningful, I guess?”
  • (SM) I still can’t put my head around a Spiderman singing… blech

• Biggest Wii Bundle Ever?? (udg)
  • One Wii console, one Wii Balance Board and apparently all 408 games released in Japan. Yours for a cool one million yen. That’s over US$11,000.
  • Japanese used game shop Enterking is offering this limited one-off bundle for the Japanese New Year sales period. The complete bundle is largely used, sure, but Japanese gamers tend to take good care of titles they plan to resell. It does not include special game editions or budget versions.
  • The total retail value is 2.3 million yen — over $27,000!
  • The bundle goes on sale between January 1 and January 3. In the event that multiple parties are interested in purchasing this one-of-a-kind bundle, Enterking will hold a raffle to decide the winner.
    • I think they should make it an auction with the proceeds above and beyond the 11,000 going to charity! (JP)

• Ian McKellan to Reprise Gandalf (JP)
  • Yaaay! this fact is finally confirmed, everyone’s favorite wizard is BACK!
  • There were worries with the union strike, and the delays that he wasn’t on board.
  • Filming for both films (hobbit and bridge) start Feb. 2011 and will take over a year
  • first one is out Nov. 2012, sequel Nov 2013
  • What scenes are you most excited to see in the new movies???

Intarweb Goldmine

• Crazy Spanish Woman Wants To Charge Everyone To Use The Sun, Which She Now Owns (udg)

  • Angeles Duran has decided a weird lil quirk of international law makes it possible for people to make claim on Extraterrestrial real estate.  So, she has decided to make a notarized, registered claim on the star we all call the sun and yeah, she’s gonna start charging people to use it.
  • Now, all this people laying claim to balls of rock and/or gas 240,000+ miles away goes back to 1967 when the UN ratified the Outer Space Treaty. It said that space is the “province of all mankind” and that bits or the whole of it could not be claimed by any world government. Not even if you plant your flag on it. It, however, made no mention of individual world citizens to do so.  And people being people, they started to claiming things.  12 years later the UN tried to nip this silliness in the bud by finalizing the Moon Treaty forbidding ownership of extraterrestrial real estate. But the Moon Treaty has only been ratified by 13 governments (unlike the 98 who signed the OST), none of whom have space programs. Spain is not one of them.
  • So Angeles has registered the Sun as being her property at her local notary public and is confident in her claim. “There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I’m not stupid. I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have don it, it simply occurred to me firs.”
  • And yup, she plans on charging. She will donate 1/2 the proceed to the gov of spain, 20% to Spain’s pension fund, and 10% each to scientific research, ending world hunger and herself.
  • Hmmm…. so Miss Duran, whatchya gonna do if we don’t pay? I’d like to see ya try to take it away.

• FedEx Loses Radioactive Rods
• Man arrested after ejaculating on TSA during manual pat down (JP)
  • 47 year old gay man was arrested at San Francisco International Airport after ejaculating while being patted down by a male TSA agent.  Percy Cummings, an interior designer from San Francisco, is being held without bail after the alleged incident, charged with sexually assaulting a Federal agent.
  • Maybe they just should have had him buy the guy dinner or something??
  • What kind of a pat down was this is what I’m wondering… I’ve never even had a lap dance that good!
  • Be warned: A TSA spokesperson declined to comment on this specific case, but said that anyone ejaculating during a pat-down would be subject to arrest.

Extra Links

• Apple buys old HP campus
• Wikipedia gets Angry about plea for money

• Archived Interview w/ Irvin Kershner
• How to make Google Translate Beatbox (udg)
• Kershner Vanity Fair Interview (I’m so not girlie girl but I do read this mag ) (udg)

Next Week

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Jeremy is @jpuent, Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com and jpuent@thepowergeeks.com and uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!)
• 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.
• Who: @aDigitalAngel & fellow nerds at ShinyLines.com

Luxury Lane Soaps

http://luxurylanesoap.com, @KyleeLane, GORGEOUS, IMAGINATIVE, HANDCRAFTED, GEEKY Soap

• Can I say any more superlatives? You will love her products.
• (We Do! They’re Geekalicious! but don’t eat them… they are SOAP!)