Monthly Archives: July 2013

by | July 26, 2013 · 3:23 pm

Around the Web July 26, 2013

NBC News recently got a tour of “the coolest museum you’ll never see”. The reason you’ll probably never see it is because it’s located inside CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. For the most part access is restricted to CIA personnel and invited guests. The museum houses some really cool items dating back from to the CIA’s predecessor organization, the Office of Special Services (OSS).

spy-CIA_LOGONot only is there the cool, nearly inaccessible museum, there is also a classified collection that I’m sure is even cooler. While the general public can’t get access to the museum itself, some of the collection can be viewed here.

Ever gone to a baseball game in the middle of summer, gotten yourself a nice cold beer, sat down, taken a sip, only to find out that the 98°F weather outside has already turned your cold beer warm? This is why I don’t get beer at baseball games, and it’s a shame. But now, thanks to the brilliant people at Dodger’s Stadium, this is no longer an issue. These geniuses (and I truly mean that) have discovered a machine that freezes beer foam to act as a mini cooler for the beer.

zkirinfrozenbeer

It’s like the adult version of a Root Beer Float.

This apparently keeps beer cool for up to 30 minutes, which should be plenty of time to finish it before it gets to warm. Perhaps I will have to rethink my baseball game beer purchases.

Beware if you are planning to visit France! An unnamed French woman and her poodle (you can’t make that up) were severely mauled by feral cats in Belfort. This only reinforces my fears that my cats are trying to kill me.

cats

They are always watching…

I’m wondering if this is what happens when they can’t haz cheezburger.

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by | July 25, 2013 · 11:19 am

Star Trek Tech

One of the biggest reasons for my lifelong love affair with Star Trek is the amazing Star Trek technology. Since the very beginning, Gene Roddenberry imagined Star Trek as an idealized future for humanity, where we have been able to set aside our petty differences and work for the betterment not just of mankind but an entire alliance of alien races as well, by using their incredible technology. This fantastic vision has helped inspire several generations of Trekkie engineers to try and develop the wonderful devices that lead them to fall in love with the show in the first place. Being an engineer myself, it’s kind of fun to think about what we have already been able to achieve and where we still have to go.

THE PADD

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One of the simplest and most ubiquitous pieces of tech found on the Enterprise is the PADD. A small data entry device, slightly larger than a book and about as thick as a yellow legal pad, they are used for everything from writing an official report to serving as a catalog for wedding dresses. When Star Trek writers want to make it look like a character is hard at work, they usually show them half out of uniform, sleeves rolled up and a table covered in PADDs.

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In January of 2010, the late, great Steve Jobs announced a new Apple device. Not just inspired by Star Trek, the iPad has been almost completely ripped off Star Trek.  It even had almost exactly the same name and bore more than a striking resemblance to the Star Trek device, albeit a bit larger. Flash forward to 2012 and a few iPad models later, Apple announced the iPad mini, which is now basically the same size as a PADD. This is one of the few times blatant plagiarism is absolutely acceptable.

UHURA’S EAR PIECE

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Not as universal as the Pad, this little device is much more iconic. A quick Google image search for Uhura will come back with hundreds of images of her sitting at her station wearing her ear piece. It’s so iconic in fact that it was also included without change in J.J. Abrams 2010 reboot. Although essentially gone by the time of The Next Generation, for 1960’s America this ear piece was quite the impressive device. They had never seen a wireless device this small that would so easily fit into someone’s ear.

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Those of us living in the 21st century, however, see this all the time.  We call it a Bluetooth headset. People in their mid-twenties or older remember that when Bluetooth first came on the market, it was used almost exclusively as a hands free devices for phones.  This lead to many humorous moments trying to figure out if someone was on the phone or if they were crazy and talking to themselves (especially if the conversation got particularly heated).  Now we’ve grown use to seeing this, but in the early 2000’s it was pretty damn funny.

HOLODECK

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This is honestly as glorious as it looks.

In the pilot of The Next Generation, Riker goes to find Data on the Holodeck, a room where the entire environment, including interactive characters, is artificially generated. The system started off very basic, but as the show progressed (and budgets increased) entire episodes would be set on the Holodeck. This simple room allowed the crew of the Enterprise to visit far off alien planets, fantasy worlds, or various historical periods (Worf in the Old West was one of my favorites). Frequently these episodes would end up revolving around something going wrong with the Holodeck, so much so that even the show made a joking reference to it in an episode of Deep Space Nine.

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I hope I look this good when I’ve been dead 16 years.

In April of 2012 at the Cochella Music Festival the audience was treated to a surprise performance by rapper 2Pac. This appearance was a huge surprise because 2Pac has been dead for sixteen years and this unbelievable feat was accomplished through the use of holograms. While it isn’t the Holodeck yet, it is a considerable advance in holographic technology. This same technology is being used in Japan to create an entirely artificial pop music star, Hatsune Miku. We aren’t that far away from completely interactive worlds that we can explore.

What Star Trek Tech do you want to see make its way to our modern world? Let us know down below in the Comment section.

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by | July 24, 2013 · 12:37 pm

Winning Science July 24, 2013

Here is an interesting experiment recently performed in Scotland using dolphins. It seems that dolphins might actually respond to unique whistles like we would our own name. Additionally, they suspect that we are underestimating the complexity of dolphin interactions. This is way better than the experiments they use to do with dolphins.

I have no words to describe this, just laughter.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was able to take a rare, long distance shot of Earth. This feat is rare because it turns out the earth is usually to close to the sun to take a picture, at least from Cassini’s perspective.

201307_Cassini_Earth_SaturnI understand Cassini cost $3.27 billion, but that’s a fantastic picture, especially from 900 million miles away.  I can’t get my camera to take pictures that clear from 9 ft away.

In preparation for future production of Google Glass, Google has purchased a stake in a Taiwanese firm which manufactures some of the most necessary components for the tech device. They are preparing for an expected 2 million units in annual production. That’s crazy!

google glass

These glasses are really cool, but I’m still on the fence about them.  As companies spend the next few years attempting to give us the next big thing, commercialism is going to get very interesting.

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by | July 23, 2013 · 3:43 pm

SDCC Wrap Up

San Diego Comic Con has come and gone, and while I was unable to attend I have kept up to date with the latest and coolest announcements. I’m going to take a minute and cover some of the things that I’m most excited about. This is by no means an exhaustive list; it’s just what has piqued my interest.

 

COMICS

Obviously there are going to be plenty of comic book announcements coming from a comic book convention. Probably the most interesting announcements are coming out of IDW. Next year looks rather bright for them with a new Walt Simonson Viking series called Ragnarők, an artist edition of another Simonson title Star Slammers; An artist edition of Hellboy in Hell (which I plan to preorder as soon as I can); and a new series Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland.Nemo_Teaser_color_2.2 I’m certain most people are unfamiliar with Little Nemo (nothing to do with Finding Nemo), but I have been unable to find this favorite of my childhood since I was about twelve and I am super excited for a chance to return to this universe. The fact that it comes from the writers of Locke & Key, about whom I have heard nothing but good things , excites me even further.

Speaking of hearing good things, this year’s Eisner awards were announced the Friday of the convention and not surprisingly, Saga has done very well for itself, winning both Best Continuing Series and Best New Series as well as a Best Writer award for Brian K. Vaughan. This shouldn’t be any surprise as it’s Vaughan’s third Eisner for Best New Series and his second for Best Writer, but I don’t care. This series is amazing and it deserves recognition. While I would have also loved to see Fiona Staples win (or be nominated for that matter), David Aja’s wins for Best Cover Artist and Best Penciler/Inker nearly make up for this. I honestly don’t care about Hawkeye as a character, but I keep reading the book because Aja’s amazing art and Fraction’s superior writing.

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Finally, coming out of Marvel’s catch-all Cup O’ Joe panel are two announcements that make me hopeful. First up is Young Avengers Afterparty. I’m not much of an after-party fan, but Young Avengers has been very enjoyable so far and this should be a nice Christmas time wrap up of the story arc. It also promises to include some shorter stories about a couple of the characters, including one of my favorites, Pixie.

The second of Mr. Quesada’s announcements is that a new series called Revolutionary War, featuring many second and third string UK based characters is on its way. I like these kinds of series. There is always so much room to develop these characters in whatever new ways the creative teams wants to take it. I will admit that not knowing a single character that’s going to be in the series, I’m cautiously optimistic.

 

MOVIES

What would SDCC be without movie announcements? It might be all about comics and who really wants that (Oh the humanity!). This year is no exception. Right off the bat we have The Avengers: Age of Ultron. After The Avengers turned into a mega-blockbuster last summer, we all knew that a sequel was on its way, but I assumed, based on the Easter Egg, that the villain would be Thanos, the Mad Titan. Turns out I was wrong. It looks like Marvel is saving that one for film number three (as well as for Guardians of the Galaxy) and instead we get one of the Avengers’ greatest foes, Ultron. ultronFor those who don’t know, Ultron is an artificial intelligence created by original Avenger Hank Pym (Ant Man). It eventually turns on him and becomes an incredibly intelligent, ever evolving, homicidal robot who frequently tries to kill our beloved heroes. Ultimately, this is a villain I can get behind, and I’m pleased with the announcement.

trask

This is going to be fun. The mustache says so.

Now from the other side of the street, over at DC there are two big pieces of movie news. First and probably most controversial is that the upcoming Man of Steel sequel will include Superman and Batman working as a team. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Man of Steel left us with so much potential for more adventures with Superman that I’m a little disappointed they feel the need to do a crossover between the two franchises so soon. Also the fact that Christian Bale will likely not be returning for the film adds to my apprehension. For all his flaws as a person, Bale played a very really and believable Batman and it will be tough for someone else to fill his shoes.

The second reveal is the post Justice League: Flash Point Paradox/ Justice League: War DC animated films. There is no doubt that while DC has not done well in the feature film market, they are dominating the animated original movie market. There were rumors that after Flash Point that there would only be New 52 based movies, but this is not going to be the case. Not only that, the next two movies will feature Batman. Batman and Son will introduce Damian Wayne to the animated comic universe and Batman: Assault on Arkham will presumably take place somewhere in the Batman: Arkham Asylum video game universe. I’ve been selective on which of the animated films I buy, but I think both of these will make the cut.

 

GAMING

Gaming at SDCC seemed to take a bit of a back seat. Given the massive announcements leading up to and during E3, it’s not surprising that things were a bit more subdued in California. Microsoft showed off some of the new features with the Kinect and Xbox One. The coolest one by far is the fact that the Kinect will recognize unique users and automatically switch user profiles based on who has the controller. I used to go absolutely nuts when my roommate and I would play games because I like inverted controls and he doesn’t. A couple months ago we set up my NES and looking back it’s amazing how far this technology has come along.

The best and worst gaming news however comes from Nintendo. My favorite RPG of all time, Earthbound, is finally being re-released. I have played many RPGs in my day, some of the top titles among them, but none of them quite live up to the awesomeness that is Earthbound. However, it is only being released for the Wii U, a console that I do not own. I am now torn.  Do I wait even longer and hope that it comes out for a system I do own, like 3DS (which can totally hack the graphics), or do I fork out the $350 for the system so I can play this game again? There are certainly pluses and minuses to both sides so this may have to come down the best method of decision making I know of:  flipping a quarter.

earthbound

Alright folks, this is what I loved about SDCC. What did you like? Comment below and let us know what you liked and what you wanted to see more of.

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