This Week in Geekdom

Woot! We're back to our regularly scheduled postings! There's some exciting stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks (COSTUMES!), so stay tuned. In the meantime, let's kick off This Week in Geekdom with this impressive new video from the dude behind A Capella Science:

General Awesomeness

If you aren't wholly fed up with the whole PAX kerfuffle (not that anyone could blame you if you were), this article over on Polygon offers up one of the most holistic, systemic analysis of the situation that has been written to date.

Ever wanted to act out your loyalties to the Galactic Empire or just give your neighbors more evidence of your overwhelming nerdiness? Got an extra $16,000 USD (£9,800) on hand?  Well, head on over to Ebay and bid on this to-scale replica of an AT-AT.

No one would cut you off in traffic...ever again.

Holy tidal shifts! This stunning photo series captures the extremes between high and low tide in various locales along the British coast as a ream of gifs.

Old and busted: Silly Putty. New hotness: Kinetic Sand.

Science/Technology

Just how well do you see color? Take this interactive color gradient exam and find out!

Researchers at the University of Nottingham, while not ducking the financial predations of their Sheriff, announced in the latest issue of the journal Neurology that they have discovered a new biological marker for Parkinson's Disease. 

After we got official confirmation of Voyager 1's departure from our solar system, did you wonder what Earth must look like from that far-flung vantage? Well, wonder no more.

Oh Windows 8, even Microsoft is beginning to realize just how unloved you are. The mega-corporation announced on Tuesday that it would not only be providing a free update to the 8.1 version of the OS for those already using 8.0, but all new PCs that were to have received the base 8.0 OS will instead receive the less maligned 8.1 version. These changes are scheduled to go into effect in October.

And, immediately after making the above announcement, Microsoft then had to release an emergency patch for users of its Internet Explorer web browser after it was discovered that the latter was more vulnerable to hacking than previously believed. 

The forthcoming edition of the PLoS One journal contains some interesting insights about our species' ability to smell. Turns out, all smells fall into 1 or more of 10 basic stinky categories. Here's the science.

Games

If you were one of more than 9,000 Neal Stephenson fans who chipped in to his Kickstarter to support his "attempt to revolutionize sword fighting video games" you may have to wait even longer than previously forecast. This week, the Snow Crash author and his development team were forced to concede that their project was not developing as planned and that the "pause button" had to be hit. Rock, Paper, Shotgun provides this rundown of the rapidly deteriorating situation.

On Monday, gamers who utilize Linux got some potentially exciting news. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, gave this keynote speech at LinuxCon in which he underscored the importance of open source platforms and reiterated that he feels Linux will be the future of video gaming. After the successful launch of Steam for Linux, it will be interesting to see just how many of Newell's predictions pan out.

The biggest story in gaming this week was undoubtedly the release of Grand Theft Auto V. Though the title has only been out for a matter of days at this point, gamers have already found a number of Easter eggs, including this one which requires the use of a black light in order to see during play. 

It was a sad week for those of us who grew up alongside Nintendo. The visionary businessman who brought Nintendo into households around the world, Hiroshi Yamauchi, passed away on Thursday at the age of 85.

Blizzard Activision's endeavor to buy themselves out from their parent company, Vivendi, met with a serious speedbump on Thursday when a Delaware court put a hold on the proceedings.

Movies

Lovers of Robert Jordan's literary odyssey, Wheel of Time, got a special treat on Friday. After nearly 2 years of work, a group of Utah-based fimmakers (and Jordan fans) debuted the fruit of their labors: the fan film Wheel of Time: Flight from Shadow. You can watch the entire final product here.

Comics

Gotta love the Kryptonian script on the edges

Canada really loves them some Superman. You may remember a few weeks back when we chatted about the release of a series of commemorative stamps featuring the Man of Steel. Well, now the Royal Canadian Mint has struck these coins in celebration of their favorite Kryptonian's 75th birthday.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!