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!)

We are LIVE on Ustream . This week we talk gaming gear, more facebook drama, a review of social network, and JEREMY IS BACK!

Intro Jeremy (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!! )
Intro Natali

Items of Interest

• ISS Turns 10!!!

• Most bizarre app I’ve seen yet (udg)
  • Ever wonder how much of your favorite caffeinated beverage will actually kill you? Now you can find out with Caffeine Death Count! Only 99 cents

Neuroshima Hex App for iPhone/iPad (JP)
Pretty cool game with great graphics based on the 2006 Boardgame
the App is selling for $2.99 (not bad for a game) but there is a universal iPad version on the way for $4.99

Set in the post-apocalyptic world of Neuroshima (a Polish RPG), where machines and monsters fight, Neuroshima Hex is a simple little miniatures game for two to four players where you use hex-shaped pieces to attack an opponent’s base
Do you have what it takes to battle once the board gets full?

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
• first Piece revealed and accompanying t-shirt @hefnatron
• Ellen campaign!!
• NEW TOP-SECRET: There will be baskets of UDC goodies for X-mas
  • UberDorkCafe is planning to put together some special goodies in basket form for people that both want to support the cause AND give an awesome present to their loved one for christmas.
  • I heard something about wookie cookies among other super secret things

• 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 11/3/1971 Dylan Moran, who played David in Shaun of the Dead and appeared in Run Fatboy Run, was born in Ireland
  • 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

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• I Can Haz District 9 Art?? (udg)
  • The Art of District 9 book covers everything from concept designs to alternate takes on the material in exacting detail & the ever-awesome folks at Geek Chic Daily are giving it away!
• Star Wars Visions Book released (udg)
  • Five years in the making Visions is finally released. Lucas drew inspiration from a myriad of sources for making the movie and the goal was to bring that full circle.
  • According to JW Rinzler, the Executive Editor of the project, “The first thing George said to me was, ‘Check out Heavy Metal magazine,” Rinzler told Wired.com in a phone interview. “He wanted the top illustrators and people from fine arts, he wanted the guys who do Western art, people who do history paintings, aviation paintings, NASCAR Formula One racing cars.
  • The result is an amazing book that any Star Wars fan would love to own.
  • On sale at Amazon $26.40 incl. free shipping.
    • (JP) Something else every self respecting Star Wars fan should see….
    • George Lucas in Love (9 minutes of hilarity)
      • PS don’t turn it off as soon as the credits start….
• Tie Fighters Are About to Invade Your City (udg)
  • Available later this month,Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner, developed by Vertigore Games and published byTHQ Wireless, takes your surroundings and sticks them outside Han Solo’s crosshairs. Whether it’s the New York skyline or an IHOP parking lot, you’ll be able to blast TIE Fighters out of the sky as if they were invading right now, in a galaxy really, really close.
  • Check out the footage in the link, it looks pretty damn slick.
• New DVD’s and Blu-Rays
  • Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy (Blu-Ray)
  • Alien Anthology (Blu-Ray) (Theatrical Releases) Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Ressurection
  • Dark Star – Hyper Drive  Edition (I GOTTA SEE THIS SOMEHOW!) (not on streaming)
  • Clone Wars Season 2 (the further Star Wars gets away from Lucas, the stronger it gets – Reviewer)
  • Chaplin at Keystone: 34 original films (ITS CHAPLIN!!!)
  • Legend of the Black Scorpion (B) (think hamlet but in chinese and better) (not on streaming)

Geek Speak

• My review of The Social Network or How the movie that was supposed to make a man I thought was an ass look like an ass and really it just made me want to hug him. (udg)
  • Even if you don’t know or care about FaceBook and the creation of it, it’s still a really good movie.  G  ood plot, good acting, funny.
  • I have seen a new side of Mark Zuckerberg. All the stories I’ve heard made him seem like such an ass. All the privacy issues that FB has had repeatedly has led me to really start to despise a lot of what FB has turned into. His recent $100M donation to Newark Public Schools and reading about Startup:Education had started to soften me though. This movie put everything into a perspective I think many have lost site of, don’t want to see and in some cases will never truly get.
  • First and foremost, we need to remember that Mark was 20 when he created FB. He’s young. The youngest billionaire to be exact. And he’s fucking brilliant. What were we like at 20?
  • It’s not that he’s an ass. He’s beyond intelligent and he’s one of us. There is a huge amount of irony in the fact that the young man that created the world’s largest social network site clearly has that gene every geek seems to have- that social awkwardness. Even us “hybrids” have certain situations that will spin us out. Mark is no exception. What many perceive as “being an ass,” I see as being honest. Sometimes brutally so due to the lack of social filter that most of us geeks seem to be missing at times. He says what he’s thinking and that’s a trait I admire.
  • I now have faith in him. Faith that he will set FB right, not sell out to anyone and continue to push to pave new paths. My fave quote of his?  “Hacking isn’t about ‘breaking and entering,’ it’s about “being unafraid to break things in order to make them better.” He holds hackathons every 6-8 weeks wherein all participants have one night to conceive and complete a project. And there’s beer.

• The Walking Dead Review

• Gaming Accessories, a sordid history…
  • Games have always spawned a whole cottage industry of stuffs to make the experience more “real” or “gamey” some good / Some bad.
  • Lets take a trip down memory lane shall we?
    • Shooting Gallery (odyssey) – Looked like a real darn gun
    • Nintendo light gun! (duck hunt anyone?)
    • Track Pad (Nintendo)
    • Powerglove (2 total games)
    • R.O.B.
    • Steel Battalion Controller (WTF, who wants realistic mech combat and at $200???)
    • Chainsaw for RE4 (no motion sensing involved)

• • • FPS Vest (it punches you when you get shot on some games

• 10 weird Wii Accessories and Wii Gamers to get Jackson’s white glove

• • 
  • Yeah, a bowling ball with real heft so we can throw it into our TV’s..  BRILLIANT!
  • 
  • Because a wiimote isn’t enough. We need a full blown cheezy replica of a real medieval crossbow
  • 
  • Why stop with a crossbow when you can add 2 swords and a shield to the mix…

• and now… You can get MJ’s white sparkly glove with purchase of the Michael Jackson experience on the Wii
• $50, what a steal! (sm) I predict this to be the largest game ever sold in history…
• Will be available on pretty much every platform
• (I won’t lie… I want the crossbow….and the swords…. udg)

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• New Level 26 Book Dark Prophecy (JP)
  • Thoughts on the book
  • Note to a couple of our listeners ahhahah Page 195 shows the truth!!!
  • Justine Bateman of Family Ties fame plays a very important role (and an amazing performance it is too!)

• Turkey lifts ban on Youtube (SM)
  • 2 years ago the turkish got their political panties in a wad and banned youtube
  • There were videos up purportedly demeaning Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
  • It is a crime in Turkey to insult the country’s founder or institutions.
  • A german company, upon behest of the turkish gov’t, used the copyright process, to remove these videos, even though they were copyright protected
  • Youtube has put them back up but still region restricted them so Turkey can’t see them
  • How difficult would it be to police all that content based upon every law in the world? (yeesh)

• Cinemas Committing Suicide? (udg)
  • It is understandable that movie theaters would like to combat piracy. But, it seems they may be set to slit their own wrists in the process.
  • Many theaters across the country have taken to using an infrared scanning system that detects recording devices and then alerts the staff when one has been detected.
  • Aralia Systems, the company that offers this service,  is teaming up with Machine Vision Lab of the University of the West of England to develop the technology to turn their anti-piracy devices into a dual-purpose system that will gather data about how the crowd reacts to what they’re seeing at any particular moment.
  • “Within the cinema industry this tool will feed powerful marketing data that will inform film directors, cinema advertisers and cinemas with useful data about what audiences enjoy and what adverts capture the most attention. By measuring emotion and movement film companies and cinema advertising agencies can learn so much from their audiences that will help to inform creativity and strategy,” Dr. Abdul Farooq from Machine Vision Lab told TorrentFreak.
  • Bottom line- every cinema will end up employing this system. It benefits them and the kickback from all the blood thirsty advertisers will make this affordable. My thoughts? I’m done. So much of our life is monitored as it is for the benefit of advertisers and market research leeches. I draw the line at you sitting there watching me watching a movie. Especially one that cost $12.50 and you damn sure didn’t buy me dinner first. I will officially wait to rent everything.
  • (SM) I was pretty much done when they raised the ticket price over $9.00. I maybe go see 1 or 2 movies a year nowadays

• Facebook,Google,Zynga sued over privacy snafu (SM)
  • Everyone remember we talked about the ID snafu that gave 3rd parties too much info? Facebook was sharing your ID with their 3rd party apps who then went and sold them to datamarts that would connect that with other information about the users
  • since the WSJ exposed this flaw on a national level, there have been 3 class action lawsuits filed in California, with more sure to come
  • Google, Facebook, AND Zynga were all targeted in the lawsuits
  • allegations are: broke their own  user agreement and privacy statement, breach of contract, unjust enrichment , and violates California’s Unfair competition law and computer crime law
  • Will it hold weight though? Who knows. Just recently the FTC decided not to penalize google for inadvertently collection info on US resident as part of their street views initiative
  • They could argue that they washed the data enough and it’s not their fault that the 3rd parties unanonimized the information (yeah, its a unique ID, duh)

• Good News, Dr. Westlake (udg)
  • If you’ve read or seen Darkman, you know that it’s main character, Dr. Westlake, was on a mission to “print” liquid skin to help burn victims. He fell short, but Wake Forest Instititute for Regenerative Medicine researchers seem to have mastered it.
  • Their device allows a modified inkjet printer to produce reams of fresh skin, made up of live cells, which can be used to patch up victims of skin trauma.
  • How does the printer work? It has two heads: one dispenses skin cells mixed with a blood coagulant and type I collagen, and the other pumps out thrombin, which is another coagulate. Sprayed together, these chemicals create a reaction and form fibrin, which again helps to clot blood. On top of that, the printer then adds a layer of outer surface skin.
  • They’ve already tested it on mice, with extremely positive results. The next stage is on pigs, then human trials — but so far, this looks promising.

• Why I quit Google and Joined FaceBook (JP)
  • Lars Rasmussen, the Sydney-based co-founder of Google Maps has spoken publicly for the first time about why he quit his job at Google to go work for FaceBook.
  • After 6 years at Google and a legacy of Maps and his pet project, Wave, Rasmussen has been wooed to what many call the Dark Side.  Why on earth would he leave? The reasons are simple. Among them:
    • FaceBook has just gotten started. He feels this is a once in a decade type of company that is going to keep growing and changing the internet and how we connect.
    • Bigger isn’t always better. While Google employs 25,000 staff members, Facebook has about 2000. “The energy there is just amazing, whereas it can be very challenging to be working in a company the size of Google,” Rasmussen said.
    • Reunited and it feels so good. There has been a bit of an exodus to FaceBook from many at Google. Rasumussen is excited to work with now Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor and platform manager Carl Sjogreen again.
  • While he refrained from specifics, Lars noted that the package he was offered by FaceBook was both financially and in terms of work.  ”I’ve got a job description of ‘come hang out with us for a while and we’ll see what happens’, which is a pretty exciting thing,” he said.

• Chinese Build Fastest Supercomputer (SM – for you Natali) (yaay!)
  • Not to be outdone with the amount of pure “crap” that the Chinese are cranking out of their country, They just broke the old supercomputing sustained processing record
  • The old record was held by USD of Energy Cray XT5 Jaguar in Tenessee and was 1.75 petaflops per second (a petaflop is a TRILLION calculations)
  • The chinese are claiming that their Tianhe-1 supercomputer recently pushed out 2.507 petaflops a second… which blew away that old record
  • This is part of their 15 yr plan to eventually compete and excel against the US and other world powers and take their place as one of the tech elites

• New Details on the New Animated Thundercats Series Released (udg)
  • The new show’s producer Michael Jelenic dropped by MTV and revealed some interesting stuff.
  • “It’s a pretty complicated backstory that borrows from a lot of other sci-fi stuff, like Superman and Star Wars. In developing this, I wanted it to be a little more simple. In the other version, there’s something like three different planets involved, and they all converge onto one planet, and nobody’s really connected. I just wanted to bring that all together. It’s reimagined in that way, but at the same time, we’re going to see the characters that we love,”
  • Fear not Snarf will be in it. But “Snarf Snarf” is all he will say.
  • So what’s it gonna look like? “I think when people see the final character designs, people will think it’s a different take, but it will feel very familiar to the old series. The colors aren’t quite as bright as they were. I’s a little darker take, but you’ll recognize everybody.”
  • “We have some great artists [on 'Thundercats'], We’re using a very famous Japanese animation studio, Studio4C, which did ‘The Animatrix.’ They’re going to have their signature stuff on it. It’s going to be pretty epic.”
  • Tread lightly Michael or you’ll be on my junkpunch list in a heartbeat.

Intarweb Goldmine

• Aliens in Denver Can Breathe Easier Now (udg)
  • Denver residents have smacked down a plan to officially track space aliens.
  • The plan that lost by like oh 80K votes would have established a commission to track extraterrestrials and have allowed residents to post their observations  and report sightings on Denver’s city Web page.
  • Jeff Peckman, the mastermind behind the plan says the government is tracking alien sightings but refuses to make the reports public.
  • Peckman, a meditation instructor and promoter of new technology, including something he says reduces the “chaos of electromagnetic fields” is no stranger (to politics that is.) He previously proposed an unsuccessful ordinance requiring the city to offer stress-reduction measures.

• Teen dressed as a breathalyzer for Halloween arrested for drunk driving (JP)
  • ah irony, Teen dressed as breathalyzer gets pulled over for drunk driving
  • obviously his costume wasn’t functioning appropriately…
  • the 19 yr old blew .08, twice the legal limit (Lincoln NE)
  • It gets better, seems the costume has a curse because there were some ohio teens that were similarly convicted last year
  • Even better still… the article calls it Drink Driving each time it’s mentioned

• Man upset he was arrested while dressed like a baby (udg)
  • Its Halloween and a 47 yr old comes to your door dressed as a baby, quick! what do you do? a) Give him candy b) throw it at him c) release the hounds d) Call the police
  • Police state he was only in a diaper and cussing ppl out
  • He says he was wearing a full suit and getting heckled by teenagers
  • They both miss the point: HE’S 47 YRS OLD IN A BABY SUIT TRICK OR TREATING!
• Boy gets detention for letting them rip on the bus. (SM)
  • Kid gets detention… not for fighting… not for talking… but for farting
  • Yes, you heard right, kid had a problem with flatulence and let a couple rip and added insult to injury and actually laughed about it…
  • Bus driver wasn’t laughing, ended up giving him 1 hr of detention…
  • Wonder if they prescribe qualudes to bus drivers

Extra Links

• Defunct Geocities offered as 900GB Torrent
• Time traveler caught on film?
• Geek Pronunciation Guide

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
• http://racomics.com

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!)

We are LIVE on Ustream!!! This week we talk Wonder Woman Day!, The Hobbit finally coming to the movies, Facebook blund3rs, and Nobody expects the Chinese Inquisition!

Welcome @UberDorkGirlie
Welcome Geek With Curves and @amy_geek

Items of Interest

• Cross Section Cutaway Prints of Serenity (sm – credit to Amy though )

• Artoo Bathing Suit (Amy) – They also have a Vader suit!
  • (SM) Only thing better would be a Slave Leia bathing suit

• 10 AWESOME Star Wars Pumpkins!

• Jinkies!! Check out this Steampunk R2!

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
• first Piece revealed and accompanying t-shirt @hefnatron
• Ellen campaign!!
• NEW TOP-SECRET: There will be baskets of UDC goodies for X-mas
  • UberDorkCafe is planning to put together some special goodies in basket form for people that both want to support the cause AND give an awesome present to their loved one for christmas.
  • I heard something about wookie cookies among other super secret things

• Today in Geek History
  • JebApps (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 October 6th, 1967 – The Star Trek episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’ airs, introducing the Mirror Universe and the evil goatee.
  • 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

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Zombified Red Dead Redemption
  • No release date yet but we couldn’t resist zombies in the wild west
• See Paranormal 2 for Free This Week
• Fallout: New Vegas Released This week- Review
• DVD Releases:
  • Predators (reboot for the Predator series)
  • Apocalypse Now (Blu-Ray) (both classic and Redux version)
  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Blu-Ray)
  • SEVEN SAMURAI (Blu-Ray) (SM) Fave samurai movie of all time!
  • Romeo + Juliet (blu-Ray)

Geek Speak

Nintendo NES Turns 25, Was your princess in another castle?

• The NES turned 25, October 18, 2010
• NES, 8 bit system, came out after the Atari slump and every1 thought home gaming done
• What games did you both grow up on with the NES?

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• Wonder Woman Day, 10/24 (amy)
  • Wonder Woman Day is in its 5th and final year.
  • Event was created by Andy Mangels (he has a Wonder Woman Museum) and raises money for domestic violence awareness charities – in 4 years raised $89,000
  • Actual celebrations in Oregon and New Jersey, but you can bid on art online

• The Hobbit finally Green-Lit (SM)
  • New Line cinema, WB, and MGM will be the studios sponsoring
  • Jackson will be directing after all
  • Finances all ready, said to clock in around a half a billion dollars
  • Some speculation in 3D (plz no plz no plz no)
  • Still no decision on whether it will still be shot in New Zealand
  • Hobbit and an unnamed bridge film are in the works
  • Interesting factoid: Weta  was the big digital production company the first time around, they also did most of the work on Avatar in 3-D, and are working for spielberg on his TinTin move in 3-D

• iFaceBook? (udg)
  • Take $51 billion in cash, add Steve Jobs stating “he company’s in a “unique opportunity to take advantage of… very strategic opportunities”, top it with Steve and Mark Zuckerberg (you know the FaceBook guy) having dinner and the coffee clutching gossip hens come up with Apple is out to buy Facebook. Now, I will admit that it’s a bit odd for Steve to be so publicly vocal about looking to spend some money. So, let’s entertain this idea for a moment?
  • Reasons it would make sense:
    • Okay, he did have dinner with Zuckerberg (though let’s be fair- Apple has ALWAYS supported education and given Mark’s recent huge donation, it could actually have to do with that)
    • Every Facebook user would probably automatically have an iTunes Store account. FaceTime chat could be integrated into Facebook chat, potentially leading to increased sales of iOS devices. If Apple continues down the road of using not only phone numbers, but email addresses and eventually Facebook IDs as designated FaceTime “phone numbers,” then 500 million users would already have a FaceTime ID to use when all telephony goes VoIP. The pairing isn’t all that bizarre. Their child would not be ugly and let’s face it, FB has been having A LOT of issues.
    • If Facebook has the option of going public for between, say, $35 and $40 billion, next year, Apple could cover that. That would certainly qualify as a “strategic opportunity.” Just as Apple has struggled to compete with Google’s web services, Google has been trumped in social networking by Facebook.

• • Reasons it doesn’t make sense:
    • Apple’s purchases have historically been about absorbing skills, expertise, and patents, and then folding those into Apple’s various OSs. They pick up a company with experience in music streaming, and we all hope that iTunes.com is coming out soon. Apple could never absorb Facebook like that, it would have remain a separate entity, just owned by Apple. Yes, they both have a common foe in Google, but purchasing FB over it is a huge stretch.
    • Too much! It would simply take up too much of the giant pile of cash and too much time, energy and focus away from the current plans.

• • My thoughts? I’m not seeing it. It would be GREAT to see ping integrated into a teetering FB. Espcially cuz I can see Steve smacking the crap out of Zynga. I would love to see more Apple stuffs everywhere because they make good stuffs.
  • (SM) FYI, Microsoft owns a sizeable investment in FB

• Facebook still sharing your information and CNN’s Take (SM)
  • David Evans (Tech friend of Steven): “I have Facebook’s privacy settings locked down as tight as possible, but CNN still knows who I am through Facebook.”
  • Here’s what’s been happening, Facebook has inadvertently been sharing your Facebook ID, which is unique to you, with their 3rd party app devs
  • App Devs have been then selling those ID’s to data aggregators that then associate you with your email and all your friends and they then sell them to the highest bidder
  • “By not engaging with Facebook directly, they are not breaching any policies, which is sort of an artful dodge,” Wisniewski said of Rapleaf. “If you look at who they engaged with, I think it tells even more. They were working with companies like Zynga who have admitted to defrauding Facebook users publicly and said that it was part of their business model when they started their business.”
  • Yet another way Facebook has failed to keep our personal data safe.
  • Most of the grievances in the past has been small fries, now there are accusations against Zynga, among others..

• Verizon gets the IPad (AMY)
  • Not the 3G version
  • You will have to use their Mi-Fi mobile hotspot device to connect to their 3G network
  • Plans are generous though 3GB and 5GB for $35 and $50
  • Compared to AT&T 250MB And 2GB for $15 and $25
  • Wal-mart will also be getting the IPad by the end of the year

• Officer Bubbles takes on YouTube (udg)
  • Oh wait, I better call him by his real name “ Toronto Police Constable Adam Josephs.” If the name isn’t ringing a bell for you- he’s the bonehead officer that was caught on video telling a young woman protesting outside the G20 Summit over the summer who was blowing bubbles at him and another officer that she would be arrested for assault as soon as one of the bubbles hit him or his fellow mountie. Yup.
  • There’s a pretty common theory in life- if you act like a dbag, people will call you a dbag. If you do it on video, it’s gonna end up on YouTube. If it ends up on YouTube, peeps are gonna watch and respond. And because it’s YouTube, response will range from nasty comments to mocking videos. Officer Bubbles is no exception to this rule.
  • He’s now gotten his uniform in a wad and is now suing. The suit seeks the identity of YouTube user ThePMOCanada (who has created a cartoon response of someone named A Josephs arresting everyone from Santa to Obama and punching a photographer) — as well as those of 24 other commentators who Mr. Josephs contends defamed him —and $1.2 million in damages.
  • What makes this an interesting case vs another dbag lawsuit? It brings up the currently rising argument of people’s comments online being held to the same laws of defamation as if they were in a newspaper or other public realm. The comfort blanket of anonymity people like to run around in online gives them a set of balls they wouldn’t normally have. Cajones that give them the courage to say a slew of crap they wouldn’t have the sac to say otherwise. At what point do those comments get held to law? {***Insert your opinions here!***}
  • In this case Bubbles is most likely at a loss. He’s suing over a cartoon, an opinion. People are still allowed opinions and when they are based on actual facts, well good luck sugar, cuz I’m guessing you’re gonna lose this one. And because I’m in America and am allowed freedom of speech- I think you’re a douchebag. Seriously? Assault with bubbles??? Way to live out the stereotype of cops who take their power too far. Sorry, I forgot, you’re Canadian. Mounties that take their power too far. You’re almost worth the roadtrip and Dollar Tree giant jug of bubbles. Pull the billy club out, learn to laugh it off and please take this as a “Don’t be a douchebag” lesson.

• PS3 Gets discless Netflix, the world rejoices (SM)
  • XB360 has had this feature for a long time now
  • Now both PS3 and Wii have that feature rolled out to them
  • PS3 as part of their PSN network, Wii in their Shop Channel, both free (need membership)
  • Wii also gets the same treatment

• Nathan Fillion Campaigning to Play Nathan Drake (amy)
  • Fillion starts a Twitter campaign (recruited Browcoats) to get the role of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted film adaptation
  • David O Russell is the director (I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings), no comment on Fillion’s campaign
  • I haven’t played, but I read about Nathan Drake.  He’s a modern day treasure hunter and a sort of hero of pulp magazines type.  He has an everyman persona, but jokes and quips.  In other words, no one else but Nathan Fillion could play him.

• The Chinese Are Increasing My Irrational Conspiracy Theory Further (udg)
  • A nasty trade dispute appears to have prompted Chinese customs officials to block shipments of tech-crucial minerals to the U.S
  • China currently controls about 97% of rare earth production, and has the only facilities capable of processing rare earth minerals after they have been mined. Rare earth minerals are not exactly rare, but the mining and refining processes can be costly and time-consuming.
  • And this effects us how? Small but significant amounts of the minerals go into creating everything from PCs and cellphones to wind turbines and hybrid cars, as well as U.S. military technologies such as missile guidance systems.
  • U.S. rare earth companies have begun looking to reopen old mines and search for new deposits, but industry experts say that relaunching an independent U.S. supply chain could take 15 years. Finding is only part of the battle though. That goes the same with the mining. We must also then refine them ourselves as well.
  • The latest Chinese action follows a similar move last month, when China halted shipments to Japan during a political dispute over Japan’s arrest of Chinese fishermen. They, of course, openly deny blocking any shipments.
  • China has stated they were going to decrease exporting of the rare earth minerals to meet their own needs better. There is speculation they are keeping them to focus on exporting the finished items, rather than continue exporting the minerals. I, of course, see this as another step of them trying to take over the world.

• Steam growing Explosively (SM)
  • 6 million ppl use Steam daily, 3 million peak
  • year over year growth, 178%
  • on track to make its biggest year in its 6 yr history
  • Launched in 2003, now multi-platform, over 1,200 games
  • Yet another indicator that digital distribution is here to stay
  • (SM)I probably buy 3/4 of my gaming software through them now

• Starbucks Launches “The Starbucks Digital Network” (udg)
  • As a “complement” to their free WiFi, the network (which they have paired up with Yahoo for) offers a selection of premium news, entertainment and local online content.
  • So what exactly does that mean? It’s actually fairly cool- you get access the online subscriber version of the Wall Street Journal, get free iTunes downloads, enjoy sneak peeks from unreleased books and find out what’s going on in your neighborhood.
  • They claim to be coming out the gates strong for this and I agree it’s rather impressive. Right now they’ve got two songs and a video from Fistful of Mercy, an exclusive clip from the new movie Waiting for “Superman” and a first look at bestselling author Anita Shreve’s new novel, Rescue, that doesn’t hit shelves until November 30.
  • I am hoping to get into a Starbuck’s with my trusty MacBook Pro soon and check it out firsthand for myself

Intarweb Goldmine

• Thief steals laptop, Backs up data (SM)
  • Guy comes home to laundry, stuffs his laptop in a cubby
  • Comes back and its gone. All his data is POOF!
  • Well 2 weeks go buy and he gets a USB key in his mail
  • All his data was backed up and sent back to him by the person who stole his laptop
  • How sweet!

• Cat Lady-Armed & Dangerous (udg)
  • Standoff over cat ends when elderly lady falls asleep.
  • A woman who said she was upset over a pet cat was hospitalized after a standoff with police at a senior citizens housing complex off Peck Avenue in Muldoon, Anchorage police say.
  • Police said the woman, who at one point aimed a handgun at a neighbor, refused for several hours to come out of the Centennial Village residence.
  • The woman apparently showed up earlier at a neighbor’s door talking about a cat. She pointed the gun at the neighbor, then returned to her residence, police said. Police SWAT team and snipers responded to the scene and deployed outside the building.
  • Parker said the woman at one point during the standoff threatened to fire through the door. The woman has had mental health problems before, police said, and they were for a time uncertain if there was a real cat involved.
  • Residents of nearby living areas were evacuated and gathered in other buildings. Kathy Collins, who lives in the complex, said she was attending Bible studies when police entered and said they had to leave. They didn’t say why. “We were scared,” Collins said. “They offered us pizza. What’s a pizza? I want to go home.”

• World’s Biggest Enchilada (SM)
  • Mexico city brought the noms! World Record Style
  • This 230 ft long, 1 1/2 ton enchilada officially set the Guiness World’s record
  • Other feats in mexico city? Biggest number of ppl dancing like MJ and most number of ppl simultaneously kissing

Extra Links

• IPhone 4 Screen 82% more likely to break
• Chevy Volt get 127 MPG
• How the Facebook News Feed Algorithm Works (amy)
• No More Bad Dates: Introducing the Pillow Boyfriend. WTF? (udg)

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen, Chris is @GeekTechLive, 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

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!)

We are LIVE on Ustream!!! This week we talk Stan Lee vs. the Supreme Court, Tokyo game show recap, possible facebook phone?, and a couple IPhone apps that might interest you… this and much more

Intro Natali, Queen of Junkpunch,
Intro Queen of Jerkfaces, Kristin

Items of Interest

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
• first Piece revealed and accompanying t-shirt @hefnatron
• Ellen campaign!!

NYCC (iKdr)

• During the convention, we will all be busy waiting in lines, getting autographs, attending panels, waiting for bathrooms, and squeeeing over all that is awesome that time to meet those you have been friends with online and across the globe often takes a serious back seat. This Tweet-Up will be the perfect opportunity to hang out with friends you have made online and hopefully make some new friends.
• WHEN: Friday, October 8th @ 8:30 pm
• WHERE: Stitch Bar & Lounge 247 West 37th Street
• EPIC MUSIC: Kirby Krackle
• There is more to come so RSVP to the FB Events Page!
• GGN is looking for event sponsors. For more information on sponsoring this epic event, please email info@geekgirlsnetwork.com.
• *ThinkGeek Wampa Rug Giveaway!!!

• Golden Pic and Golden Pic Lite for Android devices

• • Both are available in the Android Market for Android devices running 1.5 or later
  • Lite is a free version (ad supported) with slightly limited functionality
  • Full version is only $1.99 USD
  • Go Buy it! or try it, then buy it!

Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Cheap Xbox Live & Free Halo Reach Goodie Promotion (udg)

• • Cheap 12 Month Xbox LIVE Gold + Free Halo Reach Noble 6 Avatar Helmet Promotion Has Kicked Off!

• • Microsoft is currently offering new and existing Xbox LIVE Gold customers the option to add 12 months of Xbox LIVE for $29.99.  This is 50% off the rate of $59.99 per year, which is set to start in early November 2010!
  • In addition to the $29.99 deal, Microsoft is throwing in a free Halo Reach Noble 6 avatar helmet with this offer.
  • Just simply fire up your Xbox 360, and this offer will be available on the blades…
  • Finally, Microsoft is having a free Xbox LIVE Gold weekend.  This free weekend offer will run from September 17 – 20th…

• HUGE SQUEE!! DEXTER IS BACK! THIS SUNDAY!! (udg)

• • Yeah, my man Dexter is back, starting this Sunday night. Tune in and become addicted like the rest of us. After last season’s finale I can’t wait to find out how they handle this season!

• Watch Clone Wars Online
  • What if you don’t have cable or the Cartoon Network???
  • You can watch each episode of all the seasons online!!!

Geek Speak

What if? “Warning labels for Relationships”

• What if everyone had an RFID, a scanner, and a piece of software that could read the possible future relationship of the person that you scan?
• “Sex would be great but you will eventually hate her love of her cats and leave her” (UDG)
• Corrolary:  ”sex will be great but you’ll eventually get freaked out because the cats like to watch” (SM) -Theres nothing wrong with loving cats!! (iKDR)
• “Sex will start out bad, but get better. He lies when he’s nervous, but you will know because they are obvious and harmful. You will eventually leave him for his best friend.” (iKdr)
• “Run. Run far and run fast” (UDG)
• “she is a big flirt but horrible in bed and neighs like a donkey, but she makes great lasagna” (SM)
• “Her screechy voice will drive you to drink but your children will be cute” (SM)
• “He says he loves you, but he’s secretly dating 10 different women all over the place. “ (UDG)
• “She says she loves Star Wars but later on you find out that she is a trekkie in disguise sent to infiltrate the 501, in the which you are a member”

• Mature Games To Minors Supreme Court Case Has A New Defender: Stan Lee (udg)

• • The date has been set, November 2nd may be a day that lives in infamy, for gamers at least. On November 2nd the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear California’s appeal to keep their 2005 video game law related to selling video games to minors.
  • According to the Supreme Court of the United States Blog, the case is dubbed Schwarzenegger vs. Entertainment Merchants Association and will be heard on November 2nd. The Supreme Court will be looking at the ECA’s (Entertainment Consumers Association) argument for why they believe the law is unconstitutional, due to it being poorly written and leaving the chance of it threatening American’s right to free speech, which ultimately harms the gaming industry.
  • In an open letter published on the Video Game Voter’s Network website, Stan Lee has thrown his support behind the game merchants of this infamous case which will give a federal ruling on whether it is constitutional to prohibit minors from purchasing violent games.
  • Lee makes very appropriate comparisons between the current mainstream worry about children playing violent games and the same fears about crime and horror comics in the nineteen fifties.  Hopefully the public’s fears of video gaming can be resolved without a restrictive self-imposed system of censorship that artistically hobbled the industry for a decade and a half.
  • In encourage you to read all of Stan’s letter for yourself.
  • “Why does this matter? Because if you restrict sales of video games, you’re chipping away at our First Amendment rights to free speech.”– Stan Lee
  • Dear Supreme Court, if Stan Bad Motha Trucka Lee says it, it is so.
  • (SM)…They do so despite the fact that the industry has a remarkable rating system in place already and all new consoles have parental controls — both of which help parents ensure parents are in control of what their children play. But you can help fight the battle against politicians.

• Bogus Study on Violent Video Games
  • In that same corrolary, there are studies like the following:
  • Here’s the whole study: Young men were asked to play a violent video game and think about it constantly for 24 hours straight had a tendency to think more violently (duh)
  • The other duh? if you didn’t reminisce, you didn’t experience more violence…
  • more minutes of play = greater aggression? or does the aggression last longer than 24 hours if you constantly think about it

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• Tokyo Game Show Recap (udg)

• • Attracting record attendances of over 200,000, this year’s Tokyo Game Show proves to those doom-mongers who insist that the games industry is dying in Japan that it’s not. But it is having to evolve in order to serve the contemporary global audience – an audience that hasn’t been brought up in arcades playing the giant Sega, Namco, Capcom and Konami coin-ops. So what did this year reveal?  Here are my top 3 picks!
  • The return of Radiant Silvergun! Once heralded as one of the finest games for the Saturn system, it never received an official western release – we had to wait for its successor, Ikaruga. Until now. Radiant will be coming to Xbox Live next year, complete with enhanced visuals and online co-op.
  • Mikami + Suda 51 = Shadows of the Damned! It’s long been known that Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has been collaborating with Grasshopper Manufacture, the crazed developer behind Killer 7 and No more Heroes, now we know what they’ve been up to. Due to be published by EA next year, Shadows of the Damned is described as a psychological action thriller, follow hard-bitten, motorbike-riding demon hunter Garcia as he rides into Hell to save his lover. Okay, so it sounds a little like Devil May Cry meets Ghost Rider, but with Mikami and Suda 51 at the helm, we can at least expect stylised visuals, weird ideas and gore aplenty. Plus, revered Silent Hill scorer Akira Yamaoka is providing the soundtrack.
  • The thing about Yakuza and zombies…Fans of Sega’s Yakuza series didn’t know what to do with themselves when the publisher announced the latest iteration in the series, subtitled ‘Of The End’. Instead of a contemporary drama of gangland strife, it’ll be set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, infested with zombies. The game still stars orphanage-owning hard nut Kazuma and will feature the trademark mini-games… but now they’re mini-games with zombies. How freakin awesome is that??

• DX 10/11 for Linux (SM)
  • up until recently, you played games on linux through a windows emulater called wine
  • Wine used a DX translator that turned instructions into OpenGL, it was slow, it was clunky
  • Wine currently only has access to DX 10
  • Enter Gallium3D (currently written by VMWare), they are committing to supporting DX 10/11 on Linux through their drivers… which is a HUGE deal
  • All of this support will be Open Source
  • 26,000 lines of code were involved in the making of this miracle

• ‘No Reservations’ Host Anthony Bourdain Writing Graphic Novel For DC Comics (iKDR)
  • Anthony Bourdain – acclaimed chef, food author, world traveler and television personality best known for “No Reservations,” his globe-trotting Travel Channel series that shines the spotlight on the world’s greatest culinary treats.
  • Robot 6 discovered a pair of interviews in which Bourdain revealed that he’s in the midst of working on a graphic novel for DC Comics tentatively titled “Get Gyro,” a story that takes his obvious passion for food and sets it within a high octane comic book world.
  • “It’s about ultraviolent food nerds.”
  • “It’s a gourmet slaughterfest, sort of like ‘Fistful of Dollars’ meets ‘Eat Drink Man Woman.’”
  • Could be out as early as next year

• T Mobile Blocking Selected Text Messages?? (udg)

• • EZ Texting claimed Friday it would go out of business unless a federal judge orders T-Mobile to stop blocking its text-messaging service, the first case testing whether wireless providers can block text messages they don’t like.
  • They claim T-Mobile blocked the company from sending text messages for all of its clients after learning that legalmarijuanadispensary.com, an EZ Texting client, was using its service to send texts about legal medical marijuana dispensaries in California. “T-Mobile subjectively did not approve of one of the thousands of lawful businesses and non-profits served by EZ Texting,” according to New York federal lawsuit.
  • Comes as the company just announced it was raising its texting prices & amid a fierce debate surrounding net neutrality, with net giant Google claiming that wireless carriers should not be bound by the same rules as wireline carriers.
  • Even the New York-based texting service acknowledges that the case raises novel issues. “At the very least, EZ Texting has raised serious questions about the legal ability of a wireless service provider, T-Mobile, to block its customers from exchanging text messages with EZ Texting’s customers,” according to the suit.
  • EZ Texting offers a short code service, which works like this: A church could send its schedule to a cell phone user who texted “CHURCH” to 313131. Mobile phone users only receive text messages from EZ Texting’s customers upon request. Each of its clients gets their own special word. A party supplier might get “PARTY.”
  • Wait, so these are even people that have OPTED IN to receive these texts? Jinkies!!

• Facebook working on a phone?? (SM)
  • Sources close: Working on software and contacting 3rd party to build hardware
  • Following in the the steps of google and even microsoft
  • Facebook wants access to your contact lists among other things
  • They’re in total denial but various signals point towards their entry:
    • Hardware manufacturers have been contacted
    • 2 employees are said to be working on the project
    • 1 dev who helped build firefox (Hewitt) and another who worked on chrome (Papakipos)
  • oped on possibility

• Star Wars: Vader Yourself: The Force is weak with this one (iKDR)
  • a Lucasfilm-licensed app that makes your spoken words sound like the big man’s–in theory, at least.
  • Modeled after the control panel on Vader’s chest
  • To make a recording, you tap the Record switch, provide a filename, then start speaking. You’re instructed to use a loud, menacing voice
  • When you’re done, you’ll hear Vader’s trademark heavy breathing, followed by a slowed, deepened version of your voice. The expectation: that you’ll sound like James Earl Jones. The reality: you don’t. There’s no metallic undertone, no computer-generated Dark Sidey-ness.

• Apple Approves VLC Video Player (SM)
  • Why are we reporting on yet another app to the millions in the app store?
  • This one supports a bunch of different video formats that the built in player does not support (divx and avi’s anyone?)
  • Based on the desktop version of VLC
  • File conversion can be hit or miss sometimes through itunes, its nice to be able to have something for free where you don’t have to convert
  • Making video viewing on the IPad easier could gives their rental service some competition, at least from the hardcores that DL their own stuff
  • Also what happens if 3rd party apps can use “AirPlay” a built-in service that allows other IOS devices stream to the AppleTV

• Dear Twitter, Next Time You May Wanna Listen (udg)

• • Hai, yeah Twitterz, when peoples tell you that your stuff is broke DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!
  • For a few hours yesterday morning, the homepage of popular microblogging service Twitter became one of the most dangerous places on the Internet, as a glitch in the way Twitter deals with Javascript code (specifically the onMouseover command) allowed  malicious users to hijack your Twitter account and your web browser just by mousing over a link in your timeline.
  • Twitter’s fixed the problem now, but you might be surprised that the bug was first reported to Twitter over a month ago by a Japanese developer called Masato Kinugwa, who discovered the XSS vulnerability on August 14th and then rediscovered it in the “new” Twitter when it was launched last Tuesday.
  • Since Kinugwa was not getting anywhere reaching out to Twitter itself, Kinugwa set up an account yesterday called RainbowTwtr which showed how the XSS weakness could be used to turn Tweets into different colors.
  • Quickly, though, Kinugwa’s idea was picked up by people who recognized the vulnerability could be used far more maliciously: Scandinavian developer Magnus Holm, who resigned the code so that it would retweet itself. At first, Holm didn’t think the worm would scale, but soon enough, it exploded exponentially… leading to the onMouseOver apocalypse users of Twitter’s homepage experienced yesterday.
  • So, I’m wondering who at Twitter got the flogging for this one.

• Shaq a Hacker ?? (iKDR)
  • NBA star Shaquille O’Neal is at the center of an explosive new lawsuit accusing him of computer hacking, destroying evidence and indicating that he attempted to frame an employee by planting child pornography on his computer
  • Shaq’s former employee Shawn Darling filed the suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and civil R.I.C.O. (a racketeering charge) on August 3, in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

• Shaq hacked into the voicemails and phone systems of Darling and Vanessa Lopez, a mistress who is currently suing O’Neal. He deleted Lopez’s messages and changed her password.
• O’Neal used his law enforcement contacts, both active and retired, to obtain restricted information about one of his mistresses, Alexis Miller, while he was involved in a legal battle with her.
• Shaq threw a personal computer holding much of this evidence in the lake behind his home.
• Shaq conspired with active law enforcement as well as ex-members of law enforcement to frame Darling for a criminal offense and destroy any evidence that Darling might have against O’Neal.

• The REAL Geek Mafia? Aka ANGELGATE (udg)

• • Why weren’t Kristin and I invited???  *You know why*!!
  • TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington dropped an enormous bombshell on the Internet last night: he alleges that a secret posse meets every month in San Francisco to collude and price-fix, and this lil mafia is comprised of “nearly 100%” of early-stage Silicon Valley investors.
  • According to Arrington — who apparently walked in on the group at a local wine bar — they discussed how to hold down the valuations that members assign to early stage companies and start-ups, as well as how to block venture capitalists from investing in companies that outgrow them, as well as how to undermine startup incubators.
  • Arrington says: “This isn’t minor league stuff. We’re talking about federal crimes and civil prosecutions if in fact that’s what they’re doing. I had a quick call with an attorney this morning, and he confirmed that these types of meetings are exactly what these [collusion and price fixing] laws were designed to prevent.”
  • I should note at this point that Michael Arrington, who is a former lawyer himself, is highly reputable. How he found out such information from a meeting he was ousted from though seems a bit suspect. He claims he was tipped off to a meeting of the group at the restaurant Bin 38 in San Francisco, barged in, was kicked out, and then later spoke to three attendees who detailed how the angels are colluding to combat the growing power of startup incubator Y Combinator. Given the seriousness of the charges being made, why would anyone talk?
  • One of the meetings’ attendees, well-known Valley investor Dave McLure, responded with a profanity-laden tirade in which he he called the charges “bullshit” and accused Arrington of sensationalism. “The agenda was drinks, good food, & shooting the shit,” McLure wrote. “It wasn’t to collude, to price fix, to put out a hit on [Y Combinator founder] Paul Graham, or generally bust a cap in any founder’s ass.” McClure did not return a request for comment.
  • Right now these charges are being made solely on hearsay, but if they can be proven, well I suspect McLure will be dropping A LOT more F bombs.

• Intel to charge $$$ to unlock processor features (SM – via Custompcmax)
  • Small pilot program that puts Intel’s age-old marketing at forefront
  • Users will get an option to turn on hyperthreading and upgrade the cache
  • How much? $50 – best buy or yourself can do the honors
  • DLC Hell for hardware? Its already there why not give it to me anyways
  • (SM) Intel has been doing this for years. They’ll make a processor and then deactivate features and call it something different

Intarweb Goldmine

• Luke, I am NOT your father (udg)

• • An alleged robber of the Get & Go Mini Mart wore a Darth Vader mask when he threatened the clerk with a butcher knife and demanded cash about 1:35 a.m. Sept. 13, according to Ferndale police.
  • That’s not what the suspect looked like when he walked in the front door, according to store videotape.
  • That’s right, Jamie Carlos Hernandez, 41, is a maroon. The video tapes show he entered the store WITHOUT sportin’ the Vader mask, then show him donning his way too cool for his goofy ass disguise, walking up to the counter and waving a knife at the clerk.
  • Yeah… Jamie… you are so not worthy.

• Pope Astronomer Willing to Baptize Alien
  • Guy Consolmagno Is willing to preach to any intelligent life we might find out there
  • “Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has- has a soul”
  • Would he baptize an alien? Only if they asked
  • (SM)What if they tried to eat him first?
  • Readily admits that the odds of this happening are very minute (ya think?)

• Cocaine stolen from trunk, so man calls 911, police say (iKDR)
  • When alleged drug dealer Steven Dragon found out that a half a kilo of cocaine had been stolen from the trunk of his car, he panicked: he dialed 911 to report the theft.
  • What he didn’t know was that police had taken the drugs themselves as part of an undercover sting targeting the Two-Six street gang,  according to a federal complaint.
  • A record of the 911 call he made says he told the dispatcher, “Somebody robbed my car when the police had me. . .they took my keys and everything.” He fled before police arrived but moments later, he called an alleged accomplice on a wiretapped phone and told him, “I just got f***ed, so hard,” according to the complaint.

• Swan Dancing Robot Moves People To Tears?
  • 3.2’ robot with 19 joints allows it to dance a “tear inducing” rendition to Tcaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”
  • Involves both fiery and gentle dance moves to a 4 minute coreographed piece
  • Who knew robots could dance?
  • We’ve talked about “robot partners”, “robot helpers” now why not robot dancers!

Extra Links

• Just Say No To Nerd Rage (udg)
• Shuttle hauled to launch pad for last time
• Star Wars Stuffies
• Twitter Bug Fixed

Contact Info

• On Twitter: Steven is @DarthMolen and I am @JPuent Natali is @UberDorkGirlie
• email us: darthmolen@thepowergeeks.com and jpuent@thepowergeeks.com and uberdorkgirlie@thepowergeeks.com (yay!)
• And Become a Fan
• Follow our guest host Kristin on the web geekgirlsnetwork.com and on twitter @geekgirls (yes yes, im in the plural)

Sponsors

Prof. Mordarm’s “The Wandering Geek Con Journal”

• Kickstarter Project by Lorenzo R.(aka @Prof_Mordarm), create a useful medium to inform people of Geeky Cons across the U.S., both big and small.
• Series of physical journals that will be written in and by the geeks, the panelists, the cosplayers, the vendors, & the fans. Everyone & anyone at a Con can write in this journal Allowing good, bad, and geeky experiences to liv on
• When enough content is gathered, these experiences will be published into easy to read (online, PDF, & hardcopy) editions each year. It will be the Geek’s version of the Farmer’s Almanac, but for Geeky Cons!
• To help get your own TWGCJ and/or support or if you have questions, check out the Kickstarter @ http://kck.st/cNUADw & also follow the project creator on Twitter for updates.

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Deals of the Week / New Releases

• Official Twitter App for iPhone released (formerly Tweetie) for free (JP)
• 1950′s style 3D The Empire Strikes Back!!!! (JP)
  • Free on YouTube… these guys have also done a Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ghostbusters…
  • Which is your fav??? They all Rock!!!
• New DVD’s this week include Valentine’s Day a romantic flick starring literally half of Hollywood, Invictus starring Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandella and Matt Damon telling the story of how a rugby player (and the 1995 Championship) changed South Africa and finally the Messenger a story about an Iraq war veteran who narrowly avoided dying struggles with his new post at the Casualty Notification Office.

Geek Speak

• New Game with Jeremy – Mad Lib style for the modern day….

great questions from The Professor:

• Choose 1 – Cyberpunk, steampunk, urban fantasy/horror, or sword and sorcery?
  • SM – Sword and Sorcery-hands down (bookcase story)
  • JP – Toss up… a dead heat between Cyberpunk and Steampunk I love both!
  • iKDR – steampunk ftw! . i get to ? the victorian style garg and still get to use technology.

• Each of you are now a video game (old or new): so which one and why?
  • SM – Zelda. My life is all about the journey, there’s no order to it, but its large and def. an adventure
  • too tough… can’t honestly figure out how to answer this one right now!
  • iKDR – Ratchet & Clank. i would love visiting new worlds, kicking ass and getting gigantic and outrageuos weapons, like the BFG and the one that turns bad guys into fullfy sheeps

• What are TPG looking forward to see (or want) coming out tech-wise this year? Next year? 10 years from now?
  • JP – This year iPhone 4, next year – iPad next gen (with camera for skype dang it!) in 10 years… VR Rooms (IE Star Trek Holodeck!)
  • SM – I’m more of an in-the-moment guy. now: Android is my “now”. I like it and want to see it better. 10 yrs? Wearable nano-clothing
  • iKDR – i just at&t to stop jerking me around and turn on the 3-effing-g service in my-effing-area of the us!

From Listener Chuck out on the West Coast (Oregon) (JP)
“I want to hear you guy’s take on the whole ebook battle between Amazon, Apple & Google — Barnes & Noble + Borders want to get in on the fight, but they’re bantam weight for this battle.  Will consumers win or loose? Are people really reading ebooks on those tiny little smartphone screens?  Will the iPad and upcoming gPad take the place of Kindle-like devices? You asked. That’s what I’d like to hear about.”

• JP – I had a discussion today with a client about it… I got my hands on an iPad this past weekend and I am dying to get one now… even though I said I wanted to wait for the net gen. the client swears by his Sony ebook reader… I held it, nice but I want an all in one device. I saw tons of kindles and nooks, and sony ereaders on the plane and at the airport last week as well as on the train…
• I think overall the answer is that people use these devices, I have read a couple of things on my iPhone, but overall the screen is too small for too much use… however the others are great… eventually I believe this will cause the prices to come down just like have for music, thus eventually the consumer should win out.
• SM – my sister just bought a nook and I tried it out… and it was a more positive experience than i thought…
• I can see the xp being diff for the eReader and the IPad… for now. Ipad is really unweildy for casual reading, whereas the Readers are more lightweight and easier on the eyes
• I’ve read ebooks on my phones for as long as I had Microsoft eReader… and will continue to do so
• iKDR – i still buys books or download audiobooks (i know i know) but i still think there’s room for more than one device on the market, same as laptops, same as smart phones and the more the manufactures battle it out, i think the moire the public will benefit becuase they will be the opnes taking advatage of the next great thing being offered by each competing company

Tech,Gaming, and Geek News

• Roku, UFC team up to deliver LIVE fights
  • UFC 114 will the the start of partnership (May 29)
  • Roku will have the rights to stream the PPV broadcasts on their device for $49.99
  • + they will have a UFC Vault Channel ($59.99 for 6 months)
  • Very similar to their MLB offering, where live games are streamed for a fee
  • (JP) I have been debating getting a Roku or holding out for a popcorn box or a boxee box… now I’m even more torn than ever!

• Apples Damages “HUGE” over IPhone Leak
  • Apple officials told investigators that the iphone prototype was “immensely damaging” and “huge losses”
  • Affidavit cited lack of sales because ppl would know that a new phone was coming out (duh)
  • Also, Apple knew the identify o the man who sold the prototype
  • No arrests have been made yet of the person who committed “industrial espionage”
  • thoughts?
  • The computers haven’t been touched yet as they are still battling it out
    • Apple has had some very serious breaches lately for a company that usually has this stuff locked down so tightly (JP)
      • Macbook revamp leaked early and was accurate with all but one piece of data (Vietnam)
      • Vietnam also picked up a full IPhone4….
      • Rumors are that Apple is on the rampage trying to find out where the leak is… they believe it is from one of the Chinese manufacturing facilities since it is close to the Vietnam border

• Nintendo Wii, Good for the Heart (iKDR)
  • the AHA and Nintendo have teamed up to promote healthy hearts
  • How to do it? AHA showed 30 minutes “active play” a day, demoed for the media on a Wii Fit Plus
  • There was a bit of speculation that said some mysterious “vitality sensor” was going to be announced but nada!
  • Sheer marketing or do they have a point? can the Wii woo kids and adults to be more “active”?
    • (Is this really the Wii that’s good for your heart?? I think it’s not sitting on your @$$ that’s good for the heart!!!) – JP

• Google Wave opened to the Public to much fanfare and fuss…. oh wait… no one cared… nevermind (JP)
  • If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?
  • here’s a funny sidenote… I was in a training session and someone there was asking about a free realtime collaberation tool, and I couldn’t think of one off the top of my head… Guess now that I give it some thought Wave would do all the things he was asking for…. how bad is that for Google… This tool never even occurred to me because while I tried to find a way to use it… I couldn’t. I wonder if this is like Twitter… I was so against it at first… because  I didn’t see a use for it, then after I was asked by a friend to just try it for a week… I became addicted. Wondering if this would be the same thing now… if I tried to use it for a solid week… would I fall in love with it?

• Zynga and Facebook enter 5 yr partnership (SM)
  • Zynga is the big boy on facebook who brings in a loooot of money, farmville, mafia wars, yoville, etc!
  • They’ve been trying for a bit to make themselves an independent player, even announcing a “Z Live”
  • Also there’s been rumors that Zynga doesn’t like Facebook’s 30% slice of the “facebook credit” pie that all developers are going to have to use
  • So, despite all that? Nothing, they sign a 5 yr deal that will keep Zynga games on the giant social site

• ZOMG: ‘Cube’ director wants to make a video game adaptation

  (iKDR)

  • Synopsis of movies: A group of strangers must find their way out of a multi-roomed, cube-shaped prison, which is filled with gruesome, deadly traps.
  • The director of the original Cube, Vincenzo Natali, recently told MTV

    that he’d love to make a video game adaptation of the film.

  • And he used the MTV interview to broadcast, “if there are any game designers out there, give me a call.”
  • You heard the man. Pick up a phone book, and let’s get this thing done.

• Criminals using Google against itself (SM)
  • Criminals are using analytics and good common sense to seed search engines w/ bad sites that attack your computer
  • They’re gaming the top search words to make their bad sites pop up as popular links
  • Haiti, Ipad, toyota recall have all been targeted
  • Click their site and get all sorts of malware instead of the news
  • Other forms of attack? USB drives, it uses the autorun feature to launch the bad stuff and they load it at the manufacturer so you don’t know until you hook it up
  • Facebook scams: “Sexiest Video Ever” Shows someone boobs and “encourages” them to update their video player, but its not a video player….
  • Spam back on the rise: Jan – Mar 2010 (guess the number 139 billion piece of spam email sent) 89% of email traffic on internet
  • Yeah, all the more reasons to be careful w/ your pristine computer

• In Largest Science Experiment Ever, Three Spacecraft Will Swap Laser Fire Across 3 Million Miles (iKDR)
  • The NASA/ESA LISA project aims to measure gravitational waves with giant lasers and free-falling cubes of gold CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is currently the biggest science experiment in operation, but it may have to pass that mantle on soon enough.
  • A collaboration between NASA and the ESA plans to launch three spacecraft into orbit around the sun 3 million miles apart, then have them shoot lasers at each other, all in the name of proving the existence of gravitational waves, the last piece of Einstein’s relativity theory that is as yet unproved.
  • The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, aims to do just that.
  • If gravitational waves do exist, they should slightly alter the distance between the cubes, making them detectable for the first time, a feat ground-based instruments have been unable to accomplish.
  • Work is already underway on LISA’s instruments, and British-based Astrium EADS is already preparing a precursor mission called LISA Pathfinder due for launch next year. As for LISA, don’t hold your breath. The largest scientific instrument in the universe isn’t slated for launch until 2020.

• Are You Kidding Me?: Man wins $1M playing baseball video game (JP)
  • Wade McGilberry just won a million dollars playing a video game.
  • The 23-year-old from Mobile, Ala., accomplished the feat in just an hour and a half, becoming the first to pitch a perfect game in Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s “Major League Baseball

    2K10.”

  • MSNBC report that He and his wife, Katy, plan to… know, what, i dont give a f—.

• The Grand-Theft-Auto-I-Dare-You-To-Top-That-Challenge has just been answered (iDKR)
  • Red Dead Redemption, Like any sandbox-style game, it’s full of wide-open space where players can spontaneously live out their whims of heroism or villainy
  • ..including hogtie other playings and murdering nuns
  • When players successfully kill another character in this way, it unlocks the “Dastardly” achievement for plus five gamerscore.

• Speaking of Lasers… (iKDR)
  • Advances in the technology have made it possible for military testers to shoot down incoming mortar rounds with land-based lasers, and military commanders are on the verge of being able to fire laser blasts from the air that could be aimed at tanks or mines.
  • “We literally are the invisible death ray, let me tell you,” says Mike Rinn of Boeing’s Airborne Laser Program in Seattle, a missile- defense effort.
  • Laser stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”
  • Invented five decades ago, lasers are as widely used as they are little-understood. But they are everywhere around you, inside your laptop’s DVD player, sending your phone calls down fiber optics and ringing up your groceries at the store

• Geeky Note regarding a bug I found in iTunes for iPhone users (JP)
  • Cool new setting to convert higher bit rate songs to 128kbps on the fly, leaving your original on your PC or MAC alone thus saving mucho space on your iPhone (I saved almost 4 GB)
  • Version 9.1.1.11 has a bug that causes it to wipe and redo the process each time you sync (it’s only supposed to do this for anything new on subsequent sync operations…. however, with a little digging I found that there were two versions floating around out there
  • Version 9.1.1.12 (available at apple.com/downloads for both PC and MAC now) corrects this bug… so if you’ve run into this bug or were thinking about trying the conversion… Grab this first!

• This fall programming is all about the geeks (iKDR)
  • The Event, starring Jason Ritter (NBC)
    • Everyman investigates the mysterious disappearance of his fiancee, Leila (Sarah Roemer, Disturbia), and unwittingly begins to expose the biggest cover-up in U.S. history.
  • Undercovers, starring Boris Kodjoe and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (NBC)
    • Outwardly, Steven Bloom (Kodjoe) and his wife, Samantha (Mbatha-Raw), are a typical married couple…Secretly, the duo were two of the CIA’s best spies until they fell in love on the job five years ago and retired. When fellow spy and friend Nash (Carter MacIntyre) goes missing while on the trail of a Russian arms dealer, the Blooms are reinstated and thrust back into the world of espionage as they follow leads that span the globe.
  • Terra Nova starring as yet unknown (Fox)
    • A large group of settlers are preparing to leave the apocalyptic world they live in to time travel back millions of years via a massive, high-tech contraption. Their goal is to see trees, enjoy a blue sky, eat real food – basically, to start over in this so-called Eden. But what they find is unlike anything they were expecting.
  • The Cape, starring Dave Lyons (NBC)
    • Lyons [plays] Vince Faraday, an honest cop on a corrupt police force, who finds himself framed for a series of murders and presumed dead. He is forced into hiding, leaving behind his wife, Dana (Jennifer Ferrin, “Life on Mars”) and son, Trip (Ryan Wynott, “Flash Forward”). Fueled by a desire to reunite with his family and to battle the criminal forces that have overtaken Palm City, Faraday becomes “The Cape” his son’s favorite comic book superhero — and takes the law into his own hands.
  • No Ordinary Family, starring Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz (ABC)
    • The Powell’s plane crashes into a swampy river; they manage to escape, but, their pilot, unfortunately, isn’t so lucky. As the Powells gratefully return to their old lives, they are shocked to discover that they have suddenly developed some rather extraordinary abilities.

• Ghostbusters invade NYC Public library (iKDR)
  • Public scene-maker Improv Everywhere

    recently staged an inspired stunt in the historic location: a reimagining of the opening scene of Ghostbusters

    .

  • The NYPL is currently dealing with some serious budget cuts, so they approached Improv Everywhere (of Pantless Subway Ride

    fame) to draw attention to the building’s plight.

• Veggie induced Coma??? (JP)
  • While eating your veggies is good for you… too much of anything is not good for you….
    • an 88 yr old Chinese ate enough raw bok choy to send herself into a life-threatening, thyroid-induced coma
    • How much does it take you might be wondering…. She ate 2 – 3 lbs of the raw veggie every day for months
    • Why??? you might ask?? (I did) she was trying to get her diabetes under control????!?!?!? WTF????
• Testicle blasting ray funded by Gates
  • Ray Gun, Family Jewels, no more little swimmers, men sad
  • Its being billed as a non-permanent contraception possibility
  • but really? a ray gun shining at my manhood? what if the operator sneezes? #justsayin

• Doctors see rise in Google-itis
  • Doctors are seeing more ppl coming in with mis-diagnosis on their mind
  • Cause? ppl take symptoms and “google” them finding weird, non diseases that they might have

• Facebook Uprising 101
• Tracking without cookies
• Computer identifies sarcastic tweets

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Jeremy – ODST and Race or Die on my iPhone

(Steven)WoW, and more WoW. Did I mention WoW? 2 world achievements to get, Brewfest and All Hallow’s Eve. Working towards “What a long strange journey” which awards a really fast mount

Jeremy – 4 little words… O D S T !!!!! Baby!