ThePowerGeeks.com

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

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