A blog about Geek culture.

Official Excitement Notice: District 9

Chiggity-check out the new trailer:

I hate the part of me that gets all fanboyish about things like this. Sort of doomed to disappointment (cf. the matter of Cloverfield et al), I suppose. You can see the bare outlines of pretty conventional plot being hinted at here: aliens invent serum that transforms human into human-alien hybrid, who then shows us that underneath the skin and/or chitinous exoskeleton we are all one. Cue world peace.

But I feel like I could watch those helicopters floating up toward those massive, distance-blurred worldships (at 2:09) all day, while invisible South African ladies enunciate crisply in the background. Maybe I will! Who's going to stop me?

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Old Comedy Never Dies

Commentator John McEnroe, describing Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, who had just won a record-breaking 15th Grand Slam Title:

He looks just maaahvelous, as Billy Crystal said.

This is why comedy writers do what they do.  For immortality.  To live forever.

         

Michael Moorcock is one of the basic architects of the crumbling Piranesi-like structure that is my brain. As a teenager I was a major major Elric fan. Give a skinny albino nobleman a massive black parasitic sword, and there is really nothing I don't want to know about what happens next. During that period of my life I was not absolutely 100% certain that I was not an incarnation of the Eternal Champion. (I am certain now.)

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I've been trying out some old-school Ask.com natural language queries on Google lately. This little gem sprang up fully-formed when I was in the middle of typing "When will the Narnia books be in the public domain"? (Answer: 2033.) I reproduce it here verbatim. Notice how the last stanza gently reprises the themes of the first ...

"When Will"

When will I die
When will the world end
When will I get my tax refund
When will Twilight be on DVD

When will the recession end
When will the economy get better
When will Windows 7 be released
When will I get married

When will I die quiz
When will Twilight come out on DVD

         

dopamine

Marc Andreessen, the father of the modern Web! Today he announced that he's launching a $300 million venture capital fund with his old biz partner from back in the glory days of Netscape, Ben Horowitz.

This is interesting on a number of fronts that have nothing whatsoever to do with Nerd World (raised $300mm in worst fundraising environment in 40 years, will NOT be investing in trendy "green tech" startups, etc.) But here are two things that might pass muster with readers of this august forum:

1. Andreessen Horowitz believes we're on the cusp of a renaissance in consumer electronics. Yes, that's right: The U.S. and gadget capital of the world.

2. Also: Andreessen is a firm believer in backing companies whose products make your brain secrete dopamine.

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Sorry about the recent posting rate. It has been teh infrequent. This is not the shape of things to come. The shape of things to come is more about giant global ant colonies.

Now for an off-topic post, because I feel like I have to say something about the completely mental interactions that are going on between authors and critics online right now. Like between Alice Hoffman and the Boston Globe, or between Alain de Botton and Caleb Crain -- “I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make," -- and also this blogger. (On a side note, I went to college with Caleb Crain. Hey man.)

Obviously reviewers and writers didn't used to be able to interact like this -- this easily and this publicly. Suddenly they can, and nobody has any idea how to do it. It's like they used to go out, then broke up messily, then somebody forgot and invited them both to the same party. That party being the Internet. Awkward!

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Hot Mile High Trivia Action

Forget Call of Duty 5:  World at War.  I've discovered an online multiplayer game that's more thrilling than Halo 3 and GTA: IV put together.   Grand Theft Halo 7?  No:  Delta Coach In-seat Trivia.

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I discovered this massively immersive game on a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta.  You compete live against other flyers on the plane to correctly answer multiple choice trivia questions as fast as possible to score the highest number of points.   Sounds boring and lame, right?  Wrong.

The challenge isn't the difficulty of the trivia, which isn't that tough.  No.  You're on a plane.  If there's turbulence, the whole plane shakes, and makes it super hard to hit the right answer on the touch screen.  Also, there's your kids.  Try remembering the name of the highest peak in North America (Mount McKinley) while your three-year-old is screaming that her sister took the blue crayon and blue is her favorite.

More compelling yet is that you're only sort of playing against strangers.  Instead of going up against an anonymous teenager in Hong Kong on Xbox Live, your enemies are on the flight with you.  The game even tells you their seat number.  You can psyche out “El Gato” in 34 E while walking to the bathroom.

If feeling intellectually superior to the coach-sitting masses doesn't do it for you, there's a bonus version of the trivia game.  On the way home... you can cheat.  Delta just doesn't have that many questions.  So on the return flight, you can ace out everyone and seem like a super genius to twenty semi-adjacent strangers who know where you're sitting.  Let your wife handle the kids.

         

Tuesday's Nerd News Top 5

See, I'm running with this new top 5 format. It's for days when I'm having trouble finding a blogworthy item, so instead you get five items that aren't blogworthy. Let's go!

1. This video from the Watchmen Blu-Ray, where Snyder breaks down how he made the best 3 minutes of movie released this year:

Awww ... it was a rubber hand. And sorry, but did he say 'duveteen'?

2. Today is the day they sold the Pirate Bay for $7.8 million. I guess that's how much freedom costs in this crazy mixed-up world.

3. A Love Romance. Siiick!

4. China has banned gold farming. Or at least severely restricted it -- you can still farm virtual objects, just not currency. Now I won't get to listen to rants about how gold farmers are ruining a game I don't play.

5. The Palm Pre appears to actually be saving Palm! See, we (the media) were so right to overhype the Pre.

Also, I promise you I'm not going to use this site to hype my book. Except when I do.

         

Something Else That Is Like the Matrix

Every time I write a non-search-engine-friendly headline, a little piece of our Internet consultants' soul dies. The Jeopardy response to that headline would be: What is the Daybreakers trailer?

         

Google is The Matrix

googletrix

It's true! Google needs us to provide energy to the system, which it gets whenever we use the Web. And, to get us to use the Web even more, it keeps giving us cooler and cooler, free stuff.  Search, email, then Docs. And now?

Google Voice, which I've been playing with today. It's almost as useful as Search. And soon, just like Search, we will all be doing it, feeding the Beast, enjoying the illusion of free stuff.

There's only one way to stop it: Aluminum foil hats.

Also: Happy birthday, Lev! Forty is a picnic, a nude romp in the park, compared to 50, my friend...