X-Men Bathroom Sign [Pic]

First, there was the “It’s a Trap!” bathroom sign, and now this. The world is indeed an awesome place for geeks.

Epic General Grievous & Predator Costumes

I totally wanted to post this a few weeks back around Halloween time, but somehow, it slipped my mind. I’m not sure how It could have considering that this is the best darn General Grievous costume I’ve ever seen. Check it out:

The same guy who made the costume also built this very life-like Predator suit:



Uwe Boll Directs First Fat Superhero Movie: Blubberella [Trailer]

I don’t get it… how can this guy keep producing all these crappy movies time after time after time? Is somebody actually paying to get those on the big screen? One thing is for sure though, if there’s a geek hell somewhere, Uwe Boll is gonna burn in it.

[Via io9]

Carnegie Mellon University To Add Autonomous Flight to Transformer

Yes, you read that right. Transformers are in our future– at least our proposed future. Looks like Carnegie Mellon University have secured a whopping grant to the tune of $1 Million to further develop the flying Lockheed Martin Transformer vehicle concept for DARPA, by adding autonomous capabilities. The point of this military vehicle isn’t just to fly, but to drive across difficult terrain, too… all of its own volition. A thinking machine; a robot not quite in disguise, helping keep soldiers safe.

And yes: they are really calling it the Transformer. Or, TX for short.

PopSci explains:

The Transformer, you’ll recall, is a proposed four-wheeled vehicle capable of off-road terrestrial travel as well as flight. DARPA is asking contractors for a vehicle with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities, a 250-nautical-mile range on a single tank of fuel, a seating capacity of four, and a payload capacity of at least 1,000 pounds. The idea is to give soldiers terrain independent mobility, allowing them to leap impassable terrain or to avoid terrestrial threats like ambushes or improvised explosive devices.

If, like me, you’re a NOVA addict, you might remember Carnegie Mellon’s entrant into the DARPA 2007 Urban Challenge, which won. The vehicle, like all the others in the contest, had to be completely autonomous. The Carnegie Mellon entrant — named the Boss — ended up winning the entire event, and since then, the university has also worked on autonomous submarines and helicopters.

DARPA seems to be doing a pretty good job of siphoning the talent of universities into military development, that’s for sure. (If you haven’t seen NOVA episode, you really ought to; last I checked it was on Netflix, too.)

But back to what Carnegie Mellon is doing with the Transformer. Because, as cool as a Transformer truck might be — even one that can fly — what really fascinates me is the software used to program the autonomous control. Sanjiv Singh, who is a professor of robotics at CMU, explains it best:

The TX is all about flexibility of movement and key to that concept is the idea that the vehicle could be operated by a soldier without pilot training. In practical terms, that means the vehicle will need to be able to fly itself, or to fly with only minimal input from the operator. And this means that the vehicle has to be continuously aware of its environment and be able to automatically react in response to what it perceives.

While there are many reasons that autonomous capabilities are important to the military, I can’t help but wonder what it’d be like to have one of these puppies in real life. Cue visions of around-the-world travel with a transforming, self-driving truck of awesome.

[Image: Transformer Prototype, Lockheed Martin — via PopSci]

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Epic Super Mario Bros. Cake [Pic + Video]

Last Sunday in NYC, Nintendo unveiled this awesome Super Mario Bros. cake during the game’s 25th anniversary celebration.

[Via TechEblog]

The Death of KFC’s Double Down

Barely a week after eating their “Angry French Canadian Sandwich“, the crazy dudes from Epic Meal Time are back, and this time, they’re making their own version of KFC’s Double Down. They named it the Double Kill. Behold:

I swear, these guys are going to wake up someday and die a very slow and agonizing death… or maybe a quick one where their heart will burst out of their chest. Who knows? One thing is for sure though, their livers would probably then be considered as a delicacy by foie gras-loving cannibals.

Beautiful: Speedflying in Wengen, Switzerland.

Check out this amazing video showing 2 crazy dudes speedflying in the area of Wengen, Switzerland.

[Via Reddit]

Thoughts on Going PC: A Decade-Long Mac User Makes Peace with Microsoft

My post from a few weeks ago, detailing why I’d decided to switch to a PC from a Mac, really got some of your blood boiling. While there were a few folks utterly aghast at my decision to nix the shiny world of Apple for the starker, more sterile world of Microsoft, on the whole, I think most of you were pretty supportive of my choice. (As an aside: Mac Mini was still too expensive!)

The rundown: All in all, the whole computer cost us about $300 or so (including Windows 7), and a third of that was from an Amazon gift card we had. We used spare parts from a Dell we had on hand, as well as a new motherboard, processor, and power supply. An awesome friend of ours gave us the video card (both the first and second, more on that later) at no cost other than the promise we’d play WoW and D&D.The biggest expense ended up being Windows 7.  Now it all sits comfortably (and quietly) in an obsidian black box near my feet.

One of the things commenters on my first post asked for was an update as to what life was like after the switch. And indeed I wondered the same thing: what would working on a PC be like, ten years after starting with Macs? Truth be told, I had a short stint with Vista in about 2005 — but that experience was akin to some sort of torture. So I’ve got to say, initially my expectations really weren’t that high.

So, here are my first overall observations now that everything is fully functional and Tyrol the Cylon PC is now my day-in, day-out companion.

The Joy of the Buy

Buying parts for your own computer is both really exciting and really frustrating. I’ve never just been able to traipse into a computer parts store and buy stuff to put in my computer. So the experience has been kind of novel for me. I picked out my own power supply, ordered my processor and motherboard. Then I put them into my computer — with the help of my far more technically-inclined husband — and everything, after a fair bit of troubleshooting, actually works. It’s kind of magical!

However. Buying parts for your computer can also be frustrating. Finding cables and power supplies and then bringing them home to find out they don’t quite work, for example. Or having a video card simply fail. These things happen. But it’s part of the experience, this troubleshooting. And it’s super empowering to find the solution yourself! Which, most of the time, is the case. And if you’re having weird errors? Oh, Google Search is totally your friend.

The Operating System

Windows 7… is pretty awesome. I learned to type on an Apple IIe. Not until I was in high school, and my parents got an Aptiva (through which I became horrifically addicted to the game Torin’s Passage), did I have any schooling in the ways of Microsoft and IBM. And even then it was kind of crappy. Then I had that whole Vista debacle I mentioned before. I won’t even get into how much trouble Vista gave me, as these discussions are like beating a dead horse. Thankfully, Microsoft listened, and finally have an OS that is a breeze to use.

Windows 7 is easy to organize and, dare I say it, very Mac OS-like. It’s streamlined and easy to get used to. I no longer have the problem of files downloading into the netherspace (which was always my gripe with previous versions). Not to mention the search function is great. I think I’m doing more than I’ve ever done on a PC before, simply because it’s easier.

Plug and Play… No Really!

Devices. Oh, sweet little devices. I have a really cool phone that takes pictures and videos. But it wasn’t compatible with my Mac. I just plugged it in to the PC and, voila! Pictures. Videos. Right there. Extremely cool, magical, beautiful, awesome, fantastic. Peripherals and networking have also been a snap. Of course, this is somewhat expected as the vast majority of gadgets and whatnots are designed for use with PCs; however, having never had the money (or the available contract) to get an iPhone, this is still really exciting for me (and probably slightly annoying for the people I keep sending pictures to). Sorry, Facebook friends. The thrill will wear off soon enough.

Other Considerations

Shortcomings? I’d be lying to say it’s been easy. We had a video card meltdown, as I mentioned. We had some pretty weird errors as we went along, too. But all in all, it’s been over a week of me exclusively using the PC and, with so much of my job now in the cloud (at last count I had something like seven separate WordPress accounts), I can honestly say the experience isn’t really that different than it was on my Mac. Gaming is better, sure. Media sharing and networking is easier. But so much of the computer experience these days has less to do with hardware than it does to the internet at large that it’s really not as big of a transition as I expected.

My only significant complaint? The beta version of Scrivener has too many bugs, which means I’m back to using Word for writing. Hopefully when it’s out of beta, Scrivener won’t eat all my formatting and send me stomping into the next room. For now, it’s Notepad for posts and Word for novels.

If I had the money, would I splurge on a MacBook or an iMac? It’s possible. I don’t know if Apple will ever stop being appealing to me, even if I know better on some level. They are great computers that work for a very long time and do some very remarkable things. However, the price of that dependability and greatness is high–far too high for me. For now I’m pleased as punch — and admittedly proud — of putting this really nifty little computer together.

Geek Achievement… unlocked. 40G.

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