By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Happy holidays, everyone! To help get you in a festive mood, here’s some examples of how some other geeks get into the holiday spirit.
Cubicle Tree: You don’t have to water it, or decorate, or worry about it dying… the perfect tree for an office geek!
A geek delicacy? Ok, ok, maybe not… but come on, admit it, it really looks yummy, in a greasy, disgusting kind of way. After posting about the “Fatty Melt” burger and Google’s Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburgers, we just knew we had to throw this one in with the bunch. If any of you feel like trying to “cook” one of these things, please share your experience with us in the comments!
[Bacon Cheese Roll | Via Neatorama]
By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
The DVD for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was released on Friday. Having pre-ordered from Amazon, I received it yesterday, and since I’m home for the holidays, forced my parents to watch it with me last night. At only $10, for a fan it’s probably worth buying just to have the musical in DVD form. However, it happens to have some really neat special features as well.
The best part is definitely Commentary! The Musical, a full commentary track consisting of original songs by the actors and crew about the making of the film. It’s completely silly, featuring numbers like Nathan Fillion singing about how he’s better than Neil Patrick Harris (“So he was on Broadway while I was in soaps, but who’s got the high score on Ninja Ropes?”), Felicia Day plugging The Guild (“I have dozens of fans! Bakers dozens!”), and groupie #1 (and writer) lamenting that she didn’t get the role of Penny because she’s Asian (“If there is a part for us, it’s a ninja or physician or a goofy mathematician or a groupie in the chorus…”). There’s also an entire song about the iPhone game Ninja Ropes. This commentary track doesn’t really follow the action on the screen at all (it’s basically just an audio featurette), but there’s also a regular behind-the-scene commentary track that provides more of the traditional insights.
One of the great things about the “Making Of” featurettes is that it’s clear how much the cast and crew really get along, and they’re all extremely laudatory of each other. Even though Joss got the lion’s share of the glory, it’s very obvious how much of a group effort the writing and the music was. Those Whedons are a very talented family. There’s also a great featurette about the fans and the reaction to the musical–it’s always nice to get a feel for how much the creators of something appreciate their fans (Jed: “All you want to do in life is to create something that people will dress up as.”).
There are also apparently easter eggs on the DVD, but I haven’t had a chance to go hunting for them yet.
The bottom line is that if you’re a fan of Dr. Horrible, it’s definitely worth shelling out the $10 for the DVD. Not that everyone’s a fan. This is definitely one of those things that a lot of people just don’t get. My dad, for one, said, “And to think, I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.”
As Dr. Horrible would say, “Wow, sarcasm. That’s original.”
I’ve always considered IT certifications as mostly worthless, but still, what this little girl accomplished is pretty amazing. This only goes to prove one thing: Anyone with an exceptional memory can succeed at those Microsoft certification exams. I wonder how she would manage to deal with real-life IT issues, such as rebuilding a corrupted Exchange database or implementing a layered security architecture?
These are absolutely hilarious. Apparently, the face detection technology on Nikon’s new S60 camera can spot up to 12 different faces in a scene. Check it out.
However, even though the ads are very good, customers’ reviews on amazon.com seems to indicate that this camera is a real piece of junk. Proof that you should never rely on an ad to purchase a product.
[Via LA Weekly]
In its original version, the Nerf Vulcan is already one of a hell of an office war weapon, but when slightly modified with a few extra battery packs, it quickly becomes a rather frightening instrument of destruction. Check it out:
To accomplish this, the guys from Manapotions increased the voltage inside the Nerf Vulcan’s firing engine using 2 X 9.6v battery pack. I’m sure you’ll agree, The result is quite impressive to say the least. The new version fires up to 500 rounds per minute and costs about $79 to make. If you’re interested in building one of these babies for yourself, you can follow the step-by-step guide located right here.
[Via TechEblog]
By Will Sullivan
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
This is especially for the cosmology wunderkinds among us geeks; hey, it takes geeks of all kinds! Among “the rest of us,” we merely semi-brilliant folk, Einstein may be most famous for his General Relativity theory, which is mind-blowing enough; however, he also famously regretted to himself and the truly brilliant astro-physics cognocenti what he felt at the time was his truly greatest “blunder”: that he had to “fit” a tiny, slight constant into his calculations to make the whole thing “work.” Everything “worked,” but only with that tiny nudge, that he apparently felt may have been dishonest.
Ironically, he himself was not dishonest about that “nudge,” and his calculations surely showed such (to those capable of understanding them!). And, here’s where it all gets a little sticky, or weird, and pretty cool…
It seems that his “cosmological constant” nudge actually has been found to be a real, measurable phenomenon. Scientists using both Earth-based and spaced-based telescopes across spectra have confirmed that so-called “dark energy” is driving the universe apart—counteracting the consolidating effects of gravity. As a matter of perceived fact, the universe is accelerating its expansion effects. The tiny force that can account for this effect—such that even totally empty space has mass (and therefore energy)—corresponds pretty much exactly with Einstein’s “cosmological constant” nudge.
Not that anyone truly understands it all—just that it fits calculations. Perhaps it “looks” or operates thusly:
No one understands gravity—the attractions of objects in curved spacetime to one another—let alone the increasing (tiny) force that is driving everything away from everything else, at an accelerating rate, that counteracts the gravity force.
“Dark energy” is the answer, but we don’t even understand the question…although Einstein did, intuitively…he just made it all work out, and was right, in the end. His other major regret–in effect that he couldn’t calculate or overtly make room for “God”–has yet to be fulfilled…or has it? Hopefully all the things we don’t understand right now, we will come to understand in time…
Comments always are welcome!
In the following video presentation, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness — sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself.
The premise of his current research — that our assumptions about what will make us happy are often wrong — is supported with clinical research drawn from psychology and neuroscience. But his delivery is what sets him apart. His engaging — and often hilarious — style pokes fun at typical human behavior and invokes pop-culture references everyone can relate to.
[Source: TED]
By Jimmy Rogers
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Last Thursday, December 18th, 2008, Majel Barrett Roddenberry died at the age of 76.
She was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, but she had many roles both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. In The Original Series, she played “Number One” (in the pilot) and “Nurse Chapel,” Dr. McCoy’s assistant. She was also the lady behind “Lwaxana Troi,” feisty mother of Deanna Troi, in The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 (where she was called “Ambassador Troi”).
Roddenberry played the voice of the ship’s computer in pretty much every instance of its use. You’ll notice that the voice remained unchanged from The Original Series all the way to the later series like Deep Space 9 and Voyager. In fact, her work is not done. Shortly before her death, Majel Barrett Roddenberry finished the voiceover work for the new Star Trek movie, which will open next year.
Personally I will always remember her first as Counselor Troi’s mother in TNG, since that was the first role I saw her play. What a great character! You’ll be missed Majel.
Here is UserFriendly.Org’s tribute to the first lady of Star Trek:
As the #1 search engine of the Internet, Google is probably one of the most well known companies in the world. Since most of us see their logo almost every day, it stands to reason that when they change it slightly, it literally jumps in our face.
In a tradition that’s been going on since 1999, Google has been occasionally modifying their logo to celebrate specific events or people through the years. And once again this year, they changed it in honor of the holiday season. Just hit the search engine home page, you’ll see what I mean right away.
So today, in honor of all the “Google Doodles” created, I present to you a pictoral of all the holiday Google logos ever published on the search engine’s front page. Enjoy!