Those awesome holograms in Iron Man that he can manipulate by waving his hands in the air?
Yeah, those are real now, thanks to Leap Motion and Three.js.
This is the sort of thing that will be natural for our kids, but mind-blowing to us Gen X and Gen Y parents.
The future is cool, some days.
This one was brought to my attention by my brother-in-law.
Hey, it's Star Wars... it's paternity-related... can it possibly be better suited to this site? I think not!
Thank you for the funny there, TheArgyleSweater.com.
There is something both very cool and, somehow, very strange about this... trays that give us ice cubes shaped like LEGO minifigures.
While I really, really want a couple of these trays, there is something oddly disquieting about sucking on frozen little men.
Maybe it's just me.
[credit to dudeIwanthis for bringing this to my attention]
A couple weeks ago (maybe longer), Amazon.com announced that they would make digital copies of all CD-based music purchased by users available to them via the Amazon Cloud Player. Yup, if you had purchased a CD from Amazon at some point in time, you would now have free, high-quality copies of the tracks in MP3 format for free.
While I thought this was a good idea, it had little to no use for me. To the best of my knowledge, I had never purchased and physical compact discs from Amazon in nearly 15 years of buying stuff from them. Sure, I've purchased plenty of MP3 albums, DVDs, books, camera equipment, etc., but never any physical CDs.
Or had I?
I received an email from Amazon the other day informing me that songs from a CD I had purchased in 2004 -- Vasos Vacios by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs -- were now available in my Cloud Player account.
Wow! I completely forgot I purchased that CD. And I think it was ridiculously cool of Amazon to remind me. Although I no longer own the CD (I'm not sure what I did with it), I now have access to MP3 copies of some of the songs. "Some" because only four tracks from the 2008 remasterizado version of the album are in the system. I'm sure more will be added as they're made available.
Thank you, Amazon!
A Happy Thanksgiving post is our most recent effort??? What the deuce?? We are terrible nerds. I for one am ashamed of us both. Gah!
How about a quick reintroduction... Nerd-dom, I am kapgar. I am one of you. Hear me roar.
Well, a confused roar anyway.
I've been reading some more updates about Star Trek Into Darkness and I am a bit befuddled. Currently, they are saying that Benedict Cumberbatch (he who I detailed in a much earlier post) is going to be neither Gary Mitchell nor Khan. Officially, his character's name is John Harrison.
Who is "John Harrison"? Well, you got me by my taped-bridge spectacles. Nobody knows. And J.J. Abrams is being as intentional obfuscating about details as J.J. Abrams is known to be.
I've seen pictures and trailers where Cumberbatch is clearly shown in Starfleet regalia indicating he's a part of some starship's crew, presumably the Enterprise. And I saw another scene in the trailer where it looks like beams of power are either shooting into or out of his hands. This, to me, would make me think he's Gary Mitchell.
Then there's the casting of Alice Eve as Dr. Carol Marcus, the head of the Genesis project, former lover of James T. Kirk, and mother to their son (at least insofar as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan built her up). Since the Genesis project was so closely tied to the plot in ST2, this fact leads me to believe he's Khan.
There is also a third alternative being posited that he's Khan as a member of Starfleet, either in disguise or prior to him becoming the Kirk-reviling baddie we've all come to know and love. This could also be played with a bit more since we're now very well entrenched in an alternative Star Trek universe due to the happenings of J.J.'s first Trek foray in 2009.
I don't know what to think about Cumberbatch's role anymore. This whole thing is annoying, but fascinating. I am dying to see this movie. Well, that may be a poor choice of words considering what J.J. did for a real dying fan recently.
Mr. Abrams, I may be ticked at how intentionally misleading you are being right now about the film, but what you did for Dan Craft was above and beyond. Kudos to you.
Since I will likely be busy as all get out prepping to host Thanksgiving for my side of the family tomorrow, I thought I'd drop by and wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving a bit ahead of schedule.
If the filename is any indication, the image was created by a guy named Don Levey. To him, I say thanks!
Have a good holiday, mah nerds!
I get way too many ideas for posts on this site from my coworker/friend/fellow nerd M that he sends me daily in the form of email links. But, unlike most messages of the sort that you tend to loath, I know his emails will crack me up each and every time and I have to debate which ones to share with all of you for fear of completely overloading your RSS feeds (you are subscribed, aren't you?) by posting all of them.
This onesie is just too awesome to not share and totally represents everything that this website is about.
Amirite??
If you'd like to get one for your own pint-size geek-in-training, head over to DudeIWantThat[dot]com.
It's times like this that I'm glad we don't have dates listed on our posts. It's been a while since I wrote that last one. In the meantime, I've been settling into life as a TSAHD (Temporary Stay-At-Home Dad)... yes, I'm on paternity leave for the next several weeks. Now that I'm a week in, I think adjusting might become a bit easier and I'm going to try to commit myself to regular posting both here and on my own blog.
To that end, I'd like to present to you, my fellow nerd dads (and others who may be reading and are totally welcome here!), the art of Dave Rapoza. It consists of what I'd consider primarily hardcore concept art that would work for video games, comic books, and, heck, even motion pictures. It's pretty insane stuff.
But what brought it to my attention? A little post on Geek Tyrant highlighting his take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's dark. Really dark. It's so dark (how dark is it, Kevin?) that I almost feel safer with Shredder than with the Turtles.
As a child, I loved the original Battlestar Galactica TV series. My dad and I watched it regularly for the short time it aired.
When the new series began airing in the early 2000s, I didn't get into it. Not sure why, I just didn't. However, I did play catch up a few years back and watched the entire series in anticipation of the new show Caprica, which depicted the creation of Cylons and the roots of the Cylon War. I loved it. All of it.
However, there was always something missing. You had the beginnings and the endings... but what happened in between?
That's where Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome comes in. Somewhere in the middle between the two series is the heart of the Cylon War and this series captures that time period featuring a young William Adama (Luke Pasqualino) as a Colonial Viper pilot.
Since this show wasn't picked up immediately by SyFy (BOOOOO!!!), the two-hour premiere episode will instead air this Friday on Machinima's YouTube Channel with subsequent episodes airing throughout the following four weeks. SyFy will finally get around to airing it in 2013 at which time we will also see a DVD/Blu-Ray release of the so-called "unrated" version.
This could be so cool.
I wanted a logo for this site that was both nerdy with an allusion to babies or kids or whatnot.
So I put the Death Star into a diaper.
The Death Star part of the logo is inspired by an icon designed by Andrew Forrester, from the Noun Project. Take a look at his Death Star icon: it's great.
The logo also looks to me a bit like Artoo in a diaper. That seems equally fitting.
—Marc Drummond
I am a web designer and developer with a passion for web standards, accessibility, usability, and information architecture. My toolbox includes hand-coding XHTML and CSS, Drupal, ColdFusion, and all things Adobe.
When my head is not in the web, I enjoy walks with my wife and dog through our lovely neighborhood (walks with our cat proved counterproductive), time with friends, traveling (often to Disney World), reading, movies, fantasy and science fiction, Blu-Ray, a nice meal now and then, and all things iPhone.
Now our walks also include a stroller, with my darling daughter Izzy.
Follow me on Twitter @MarcDrummond.
I can blame my nerdiness on my parents. After all, they took me to my first viewing of the original Star Wars back in 1977 when I was a mere two years old.
Much to my wife's chagrin, my nerdiness has not abated. In fact, if anything, it has rubbed off a bit on her and will likely have the same effect later on our new son, Nathan.
My nerdiness covers the original Star Wars trilogy; some Star Trek; the world of Alien; LEGO; The Walking Dead; Doctor Who; world history, specifically the U.S. Civil War and World War II; independent, alternative, and electronic music; and all things iPhone and iPad. But, more importantly than all that, I love spending time with my wife and son. Family is awesome.
Follow me on Twitter @kapgar or check out my blog at www.kapgar.com.
