[Source]
Speeder Bike Cosplay [PIC]
[Source]
Anger All the Geeks at Once, You Will [Picture]
I suppose this pic could be used to test a person’s awareness of the barest facts of pop culture, but mostly it just serves to annoy and amuse those who do get it.
[via Glenn Rogers]
Antimatter Explained: Something from Nothing [Video]
The Big Bang is a complicated thing to explain, and try as ou might, there’s always a misunderstanding about what “something” versus “nothing” means and how one came from the other. New Scientist is running a month-long feature on existence, including articles about consciousness and the plurality. But the thing that caught my attention was this explainer vid about the Big Bang, which does a serviceable job of breaking the quantum physics of the early universe into parsable bits that help make sense of the enormous question of how.
The accompanying article, “Why is there a Universe?“, goes a bit deeper than the video and discusses symmetry, quark-antiquark pairs, quantum uncertainty and so forth. The entire series is worth reading, but the beginning of the universe itself is probably a good place to start.
iPad Head Lady [Video]
Now that’s a great way to catch people’s attention: A girl with her head encased in iPads walking around Bryant Park in New York City. A great promo for Cosmo for Guys, a new iPad-only magazine by Hearst.
[Via Neatorama]
Hacker convention adds junior event
Kids are being invited to Las Vegas to learn hacking skills.
Nope, this isn’t another story from the creative mind of Stephen Glass, but a genuine event. The annual DEF CON hacker convention will for the first time feature a special children’s event this weekend at the Rio hotel, known as DefCon Kids.
The event is aimed at children aged 8 to 16 and will include a range of activities including using Google to find “secret information”, the history of cryptography, and practical lockpicking.
There’ll also be a session where a ten-year-old girl using the pseudonym CyFi will show off “her first public vulnerability disclosure.” And for one event, there’s the promise that the audience “will leave with smiles on their faces and circuit boards around their necks.”
There’s no charge for the events, but all children must be accompanied by a parent at all times, and the parent must have a ticket for the main DEF CON event. There’s also a spectacular disclaimer for those thinking of bringing their kids:
“The DefCon Kids conference room will be situated in and around the adult DEFCON, therefore you and your kids will be exposed to a wide assortment of people, lifestyles and philosophies…. There will be adult language, alcohol and there may be nudity.”
It’s also important to note the FAQ for the main event which, dealing with the question of what to bring, explains “Its generally a good idea if you are a pale geek to have some sunscreen at the top of your list.”
It seems encouraging parents and children to come to the events together isn’t just a case of serving an audience, but also dealing with an inevitability. The event FAQ also notes “While there are no age limits [for the main convention], we have consistently cooperated with parents and/or private investigators who are looking for children that ‘ran away from home’ to go to DEF CON.”
Featured Short: The Tale of the Three Brothers [Video]
The Tale of the Three Brothers is a fairy tale told to wizard children. Supposedly written by Beedle the Bard, it is published as part of a series of works that collectively are called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. While most wizards view this story as one that teaches children morals (e.g. humility, wisdom, etc.), some believe that the story refers to the Deathly Hallows, three highly powerful magical artefacts coveted by generations of wizards, and the three Peverell brothers who first obtained them. ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’ also has a different variation, referring to twilight as midnight to make it more suspenseful for the entertainment of children, but in Dumbledore’s original copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard it refers to the journey taking place at twilight. [SOURCE]
[Vimeo]
The Silly Adventures of Mr. Mochi [Oblivion Machinima]
Redditor psybermonkey15 did this hilarious Oblivion machinima to waste time while waiting for Skyrim to come out. Now after watching this, all I have to say is: Le LOL.
[Via]
Overburdened with Fail: Diablo 3 Is Online-Only
It’s a Blizzard theme day, apparently. Earlier we showed you the seven-minute preview video of Diablo III gameplay. Epic, amirite? But wait, there’s more. Because, hey, we’ve only been waiting a decade.
Diablo III, the long-awaited, many-fabled unicorn of point-and-click RPGs, that same super awesome game you witnessed earlier here on Geeks Are Sexy, can only be played online. Even in single player, even if you’re not buying or selling in-game items for cold hard cash. Even if your grandma, who was 15 when Diablo II came out, really wants to play but doesn’t have wifi. Not even then, says Blizzard.
Senior producer Alex Mayberry says there were many reasons for the decision, including the prevention of cheating. Since players can buy and sell items for real money, any way of cheating to make or acquire better ones would be very lucrative – and unfair.
“It’s the trend that we’ve been moving towards,” Alex says. “Obviously StarCraft 2 did it, WoW authenticates also. It’s kind of the way things are, these days. The world of gaming is not the same as it was when Diablo 2 came out.”
If you’re thinking, “But, hey, why not make an offline mode, or offer online multiplayer as an option rather than the requisite,” the answer is simple, according to executive producer, Rob Pardo: If you start playing a character offline and — completely hypothetical here and not at all based on my favorite Diablo II character, Mongol — maybe you’re a Level-71 Barbarian with max Insane Courage and some wicked sweet resistances, and you decide after all this time that you’d really like to show him off to the other guys (and ladies) on Battle.net. Well, you’d be sad because you can’t, and so to keep you from being sad, Blizzard just isn’t going to let you play off-Battle.net at all. Problem solved!
“[Y]ou’d have to start a character from scratch, because there’d be no way for us to guarantee no cheats were involved, if we let you play on the client and then take that character online.”
“Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t play a game by yourself – of course you can. You can go into and start any game that you want, you’ll just be connected to the Battle.net servers, and we can authenticate your character.”
Clearly this is less about maintaining offline and online character continuity and entirely about trying to prevent piracy. Which is fine, I can respect that since pretty much any computer-owner can get StarCraft 2 for free. But the easier (and certainly more popular) solution is simply to disallow characters built and played in the traditional game client to be imported to Battle.net. That solves the problem of bringing in any cheat-enhanced characters and still offers the average geek the convenience of playing a game–for which they paid–anyplace they want.