Category: All Things Geek

Well, another attempt at the Godzilla franchise. This one looks pretty powerful, though.

One key weakness of mine of late has been time. Time for such things as film watching. Though I watched such gems as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I must admit to a key geek failure. One that might strain my geek-cred to a near breaking level. So, here goes: I hadn’t watched the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot until yesterday. Yep; took me 4 years. FOUR! Sigh…I hang my head in geek shame.

That said, I actually like the film. [Spoiler Alert: (Ok, come on, if you haven’t seen it by now, you really shouldn’t be put off by plot revelations)] I know that will annoy some, and delight others. I liked the way the characters were recrafted. The time-continuum disruption theme was pretty cool. I wondered how they would reconcile the story-line when they killed Spock’s mother. Clever. I particularly like the edgier, closer to human Spock.

I admit that the lens-flare business was a bit distracting at times. However, it’s hard to extract Heisenberg from this (I was familiar with this before seeing the film. I’m sure awareness impacted my attention.) Didn’t negatively impact the film for me, just provided a bit of distraction.

What really caught me, though, was the Leonard Nimoy role. I didn’t know. DIDN’T KNOW!!!! Nope, no idea he was in the film. Yes, that would’ve made me see it sooner. And I’m sure I just missed some obvious marketing message somewhere. But I’m quite disconnected from the mainstream media stream at this point.

I shan’t wait so long to watch “Into Darkness”.

Last night I read, as I often do, a Kindle book on my Nexus (The Manga Gen, if you care). The app magnified the particular frame I to be read. “Clever”, I thought to myself. Yet, as I also do often, I wondered “what else can we do with these?” How can the devices transform the reading experience? Some ideas: animation, links within the document, perhaps an audio track? All kinds of quick, off the cuff possibilities. What would be wrought with a focused, detailed analysis? I know there are myriad opportunities, and think it would be grand to be part of that innovation. Who knows…

Just saw this on iO9. Squeee!!!!

The Story Collider podcast has become a deeply integrated into my psyche, and my life. I stumbled  upon the series via Radiolab. On my commute today, I listened to Sara Peters and Peter Aguero’s story about Sara’s epilepsy.  This was very well done: by the end I felt connected to them.

So, I highly recommend you spend a few minutes of your life watching the video below (the podcast was recorded at TedMed 2013, so, thus, you get video). Your life will be the better for it.

(It wouldn’t be a bad idea to subscribe to Story Collider, too. Just sayin’.) 

I don’t watch network TV much anymore, so missed this.

Thank goodness for the YouTube.

Enjoy your mind-growth moment of the day.

What I did this weekend. The Seattle Science Festival is a great way to get kids excited about Science. Yet it is way more.

Interesting that today brought me not one, but two Star Wars items.

1. I came across David Brin’s collections of essays putting Star Wars…well, George Lucas…on trial: Star Wars On Trial. I feel some weakening of my geek-cred since I’ve never even heard of this collection.
2. My friends over at Geekwire posted this piece about the upcoming Kinect Star Wars game. This will certainly be an affront to the Star Wars faithful. Perhaps if you liked Jar-Jar, you’ll be ok with this.

I’d never considered the controversy around Star Wars. Ok, I’ve heard the debates about the prequels, and then the whole Shatner incident. Maybe you have. Let me know. Otherwise, just another weird, drippy day here in the great Puget Sound basin.

The folks over at Galatic Binder posted this awesome little table. Quite the piece of work, methinks. Were I a wealthier man, this would be on my “must have” list. It looks like it’s made of bronze, so I’d hate to need to move the thing.

Piled Higher & Deeper comics created a great animation to go along with an interview with Jonathan Feng. A fun look at where we in the realm of physics research. If you’re a physics geek, though, you’ll be a bit bored as it’s very high-level. But the animations that go with this are still worth watching.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.