What Happened to 2011?

How quickly a year can go by and without a word from the egotists. If my confederates are anything like me then they got bogged down with their own daily lives and had trouble summoning the energy to do anything at the end of the day more than play video games and watch old seasons of TV shows on Netflix.

Honestly, I did think of posting on current events or random thoughts from time to time, but they just never seemed quite important or relevant enough to follow through on. So I never did. It will probably happen again, but I'm going to try and be less selective of the stuff I put up here, in an attempt to breathe some life back into the blog.

So for today I decided to post on what I've been reading lately. This last gift giving season was one of books and eBooks for me. I have joined the world of smart phones, iPads, and eReaders. I already had a significant stack of books on my shelves that I hadn't gotten to yet, but instead of reading those  I dove into new ones.

Last year George R. R. Martin finally published the fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. In anticipation of its release and the premier of the HBO series based on the books I worked my way through the first four books for the second time. These were the first books I got for my iPad, mainly because the hard-backs I own are thick and heavy and impractical for travel. Once I finished them I was finally ready for "Dances with Dragons". I picked up the eBook and devoured it in a few short weeks. I was satisfied, although still longing for some resolutions which will continue to elude us for some time.

Over the summer my wife and went to The Amazing Meeting 9, a science and skepticism convention in Las Vegas, and I picked up a few books. While there and on the trip home we both read "The Physics of the Buffyverse", by Jennifer Ouellette, and "The Physics of Star Trek", by Lawrence M. Krauss. They were entertaining and interesting, but there was quite a bit of overlap in them.

The last book I completed was "The Most Human Human", by Brian Christian. This was a surprisingly good read. It blends computer science, philosophy, sociology, and poetry in a mind-expanding way. It definitely changes the way I look at human interactions.

Right now I am just starting several books at once. I haven't really settled into one in particular yet and alternate reading a chapter in each. On my nightstand are "Catch-22", by Joseph Heller, "Just a Geek", by Wil Wheaton, and "36 Arguments for the Existence of God: a Work of Fiction", by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. The last one is an interesting work, in that it is self referential. The main character is an author who wrote a popular book by the same title, and had become the new face of atheism. The book's success is due to the appendix in which the author catalogs 36 typical arguments for the existence of God along with critical analysis, pointing out logical fallacies, and responses to each one. The actual book includes this very appendix, which is a great resource.

That's it for now. What did you read last year?

Be About It : Game of Thrones!

I got so pumped up that I've had to rewrite this three times now: HBO has released the latest teaser footage for its upcoming EPIC series Game of Thrones, the best fantasy series ever.  Shooting since June, the new show has been teased out with details of the kind hardcore fans crave, and have only served to get devotees slathering.  Here's the latest 60-second spot:

Clip Preview

The entire HBO production blog has more awesome vids and production stills.  Check em out and Be About It!  January cannot come too soon.

YaarrAahaahaaggrraahah!

Have you ever wanted to watch every single scream Arnold Schwarzenegger did during his acting career in one long solid cut? Well now you can.



Personally I think he did his best screaming in "Total Recall". After that I just don't think his heart was in it.

Father and Son film outer space, DIY.

Seeing as how no one was injured I think this is really clever. I'm reluctant to do this myself because I think the title of this video could just as easily have been, "8 killed on freeway by homemade space craft. On board video incriminates owner." or "Airliner brought down by amateur astronauts."

I'm drinking SunnyD & Rum tonight, how about you?

The Gregory Brothers have done it again. They've taken some unfortunate soul's ill-conceived video performance and created another pop-tune that you can't get out of your head once you've heard it. This one is a perfect mix of "oh god, gimme the eye-bleach!" and "hey, that sounds pretty good, actually". I fully expect to serve a few of these at my next party.



What brilliant honesty and courage to share her invention and inspiration with us all, complete with a heart-felt belch of satisfaction.

Have you tried it yet? Did you break into song? What concoctions inspire you to create art?

Ye Olde Intarwebs

This morning, I opened my Slashdot digest and found a little nugget of nostalgia waiting for me. Someone over at PC Magazine took a moment to reflect on the online games of yesteryear. As I scrolled through their list of titles, I think something got stuck in my eye. It got a little misty in here, I'm not gonna lie.

You see, few people know this, but back in the day, Yob ran one of the more popular Bulletin Board Systems (or BBSes for your fetuses out there) in the Phoenix area.

Thinking back on that time, I have fond memories of dragging a 50-foot phone cable across the living room every night. You see, in the 80s and 90s we didn't have persistent, always-on high-speed internet access. In fact, home "servers" could only talk to one visitor at a time (unless you had a lot of money and could afford multiple modems). So that meant lines were frequently busy, and you had to wait for your turn to log into a BBS.

Can you imagine waiting in line to check your Facebook? People would riot.

But I digress.

So there I was, a VERY nerdy early teenager, running a pretty popular BBS. But because I was a kid, the BBS had specific hours of operation when my parents would allow me to tie up the phone lines for hours on end.

It was there that modern-day file sharing was born. But more than that, it was there that modern day Massive Multiplayer Online games (or MMOs for you decrepit old farts) were born.

First off, there were games like Tradewars 2002.


To this day, I am hard pressed to find a game that I've been addicted to playing more that TW2k2. The only one I think comes close would be the Mass Effect series. In TW2002, my brother and I would join forces and dominate our own little corner of the universe, building trade relationships with a slew of spaceports, and amassing our forces to fend off intruders and the occasional wandering Ferengi. (Yes, Ferengi... apparently the game's authors just couldn't resist the irresistible urge to reference Star Trek).

Another favorite was Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD).


If you think of today's games like Oblivion, Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights... you can probably trace their roots back to the likes of LORD. Knowing that, it's pretty obvious how addicting it was. Sadly fantasy RPGs of that era tended to be full of corny dialog and cheesy monsters. But LORD took itself just seriously enough to provide a balanced, engrossing gaming environment. Thus, another genre of computer game was born.

Casting aside the obvious gaming tropes for a moment, there were other gems from the dial-up BBS era that we just don't see much anymore. Games like BarneySplat!

If you were born before 1989, you will probably remember that fucking purple dinosaur named Barney and his vaguely creepy delivery of god-forsaken children's songs.


Kids loved him, adults quickly grew to loathe and ridicule him. And the teenagers caught in the middle? ...we dismembered him. Over and over again. Bloody, rage-filled, Dexter-like mutilation. It was a thing of cheese-filled beauty. I make no excuses for that behavior - that fucking dinosaur deserved every single beheading.


*ahem* ...But I digress (again).

My point here is this: take a moment to remember and pay homage to the people and the culture which helped bring us forward into today. Without the lowly teenage BBS owners of the 80s and 90s, would we all have our own personal 40mbps download speeds? Would we have the power to become our own online TV station, radio personality, hell, even movie star? Probably not.

Sure, the technology of that age was being used for legitimate business. But it was we who co-opted it for entertainment and leisure that ultimately resulted in our always-on, always-connected, insomnia-inflicted, text-while-driving, WoW-before-bills world of today.

So go on, hold that phone lower so the cops can't see your thumb-typing as you drift in and out of lanes all over the country. Play WoW 'til your fingers bleed. Pick your friends based solely on their Twitter and Facebook feeds. We know how you feel. These are the things we dreamt of doing as children, and new toys continue to flood the market faster than any of us can keep up with.

Part of me says, "keep up the great work." and the other part says, "Can't I enjoy the toy I just bought for a little while first?" But in the end, today's nerdy teenagers are doing things with this soon-to-be archaic tech that will continue to drive innovation even faster.

Like my father told me when I was a kid, "Your Grandmother went from a horse and buggy, to putting a man on the moon in her lifetime. Just imagine what will happen before you die."

Now, if you'll excuse me, my Team Fortress 2 clan is waiting for me. I've got to go light a few spies on fire.

Stupid Babies Need the Most Love...

Not to poke fun at child injuries, but how dumb is your kid? Genital bleeding?! Could they even make a softer rounder key? What kind of injuries did our grandparents receive playing with rusty shell casings and sticks?

Perhaps if we spent time with our children instead of letting them dry hump there toys like a neurotic hamster for hours on end? Then perhaps we wouldn't have to make everything fool proof or unsupervised proof.

Zombie Charts

I'm continuing my pre-Halloween ramp up with this piece. Here I've compiled a list of my favorite graphs and charts dealing with zombies.

Survival


These charts deal with survival techniques during a zombie outbreak.

Informative

These graphs (and related article) collate data from various zombie movies over the years and present the information in an interesting and novel way.

Zombie Movies vs Times of Upheaval

Silly

Last, I present a pair of my favorite charts that take a silly view of an already ridiculous topic.

Do you have any zombie data to share?