Hi everyone. Woo boy. We're all still a bit worn out from PAX East 2016, but there's plenty of content to help push us through that post-con fatigue. No worries, you'll get all the goodness from PAX in the very near future! In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.
Comics
DC has fired Shelly Bond, executive editor of Vertigo, and announces a not-yet-detailed 'restructuring of the label.
While we're on the subject of water and the amazing things that we're just discovering it can do, researchers at Kyoto University have managed to isolate a dimer of the substance using a technique called molecular surgery.
Happy Sunday everyone. Yep, I'm right back in the studying swing of things, but even the specter of another exam won't overshadow PAX East next weekend. Unsurprisingly, PAX crept up faster than I'd have preferred given everything else that's been going on this year, so it's not likely that there'll be any cosplaying from me this time around (unless I can whip one of my old costumes into shape in the next week or so). As this will be my only opportunity to cosplay in 2016 (more on this in a future post), it'd be great if I can make it happen. In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom!
Comics
It was explicitly pointed out to us during the course of Episode VII, but we will learn exactly why C-3PO's arm was red in the film thanks to a new comic: Star Wars Special: C-3PO #1.
We're more more than a year and a half away from Episode VIII, but the rampant speculation concerning the plot of the next installment of Star Wars abounds, thanks in part to J.J. Abrams himself.
Thank goodness DC can occasionally possess a lick of wherewithal. Batman: The Killing Joke, slated to make its debut at San Diego Comic Con in a few months, will be rated R.
Google is pushing forward with its crusade to bring self-driving cars to a road near you after filing these patents that will allow its autonomous autos to detect the turn signals of other vehicles.
How do you go about repairing a critical chip or component while travelling through space? Well, if NASA has anything to say about it, the solution may involve bugs that have been engineered to both eat and excrete metal.
We've been big proponents of 3D printing these four years past, so it's only natural that we get a bit excited about the latest possibilities the technology presents: printable food.
Hey guys. It's been a while, I know, and for that I sincerely apologize. I'm about a month out from taking the first of the professional designation exams that are slated for this year, so the past few weeks have been all about the studying. Conversely, that means only four more weeks and we can get back to our regularly scheduled Care and Feeding of Nerds! In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.
If you were among the legions of horror fans that were grief stricken following the cancellation of the reboot of Silent Hills you now have cause to rejoice: the reboot is back on.
Lead Mass Effect writer Chris Schlef is leaving Bioware to join the ranks of Bungie.
This is a nifty little visual sample of the original negative of Episode IV contrasted with what a team of specialists have been able to coax from that fragile bit of film:
Science/Technology
Just how fast is the D-Wave quantum computer relative to, say your average everyday PC? This fast.
Next month will begin the effective last scientific call for the discovery of WIMPs. What are WIMPs and why are they potentially so important? Read here.
Solar eclipses have been regarded by humanity as alternately fascinating and terrifying, but imagine a planetary configuration in which such eclipses lasted three and a half years.
Jupiter's moon, Europa, hosts possibly the best conditions for life to exist on a non-terrestrial segment of our solar system, so why is it so hard to get out there to confirm that?
Happy New Year everyone! I hope
that 2016 is already treating you well and that the year is off to a great
start. Composing this post has become a fun tradition in itself both because it
elicits a little nostalgia when I look over similar posts from previous years
(speaking of, here are the entries for 2015, 2014, and 2013) and looking ahead
to all the forthcoming awesome is always fun. So let's get to it, shall we?
New Site Stuff in 2016
It's no secret that the pacing of
new posts has slowed in the past few months and that's something I think we can
all agree isn't the best. The goal is to change that, but, not gonna lie guys,
that's going to be tough to do in 2016. A good chunk of this upcoming year is
going to be devoted to studying for (and taking) a handful of professional
certification exams. If all goes well and I pass all the exams on the first try
then this will be the only year that gets consumed in this not-so-fun way.
Fingers crossed!
That's not to say that the Care
and Feeding of Nerds is going on ice. Not at all! There will definitely be
plenty of novel content and, hopefully, a few contests coming your way. It's
just that there will likely be a bit less of both in 2016 when compared to
previous years.
But there will be goodness! We'll
be bringing you coverage from at least two conventions: PAX East 2016 and the Boston Festival of Indie Games. There's a very good chance that we may add a
few conventions that have never been covered on the site before, which we're
really excited about.
Comics
The past two years have seen some pretty massive upheavals in the comics world, but 2016 is shaping up to be a bit more tranquil as most major publishers appear to want to enjoy their new status quo. Here are 5 upcoming titles that we can look forward to in the very near future and a whole heap more spanning the comic, manga, and graphic novel realms.
TV
January/February are often rife with mid-season premieres and introductions of fun new programs. Here's what we can add to our viewing queues in the next few weeks (premiere dates and times may vary based on your location and cable provider). Ahhhh...X-Files....Venture Bros!!
The Shannara Chronicles: (MTV) January 5th
Colony: (USA) January 14th
The Flash: (The CW) January 19th
Agent Carter: (ABC) January 19th
Arrow: (The CW) January 20th
Supernatural: (The CW) January 20th
DC's Legends of Tomorrow: (The CW) January 21st
The X-Files: (FOX) January 24th
The Venture Bros: (Cartoon Network) February 7th
The Walking Dead: (AMC) February 14th
Movies
As with most recent years, the trend in 2016 will be lots of reboots and sequels, with a bit of novel content tossed in here and there.
January
The 5th Wave - The Earth is devastated by successive waves of alien attacks. One girl asserts herself and bands with fellow survivors to reclaim the planet.
Ip Man 3 - Donnie Yen returns to the title role and takes a stand against a band of crooked property managers and cruel gangsters.
Synchronicity - A physicist invents a time machine only to have his work fall into the hands of a femme fatale.
Deadpool - The Merc with a Mouth gets to incite havoc on the big screen.
March
Allegiant - The cinematic version of the Divergent young adult novel series continues with this third installment. The content of the book bearing the name of the movie will be divided into two films, akin to what we saw with the Hunger Games.
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - The Man of Steel and Gotham's Knight square off first against one another, then against a novel Earth-threatening foe.
April
Gods of Egypt - An ordinary thief finds himself drawn into a divine conflict.
The Jungle Book - The classic Rudyard Kipling tale will be the latest of Disney's animated films to get the live-action treatment.
The Huntsman Winter's War - Chris Hemsworth returns to the role of the Huntsman and faces the wrath of not one, but two evil sorceress queens.
Ratchet and Clank - The beloved title characters leap from the console to the big screen as they race to save the galaxy.
May
Captain America: Civil War - The tension wrought from the developments seen in Age of Ultron boils over into open conflict and threatens to tear the Avengers apart.
X-Men: Apocalypse - The world's first mutant, Apocalypse, intends to obliterate all life on Earth; the X-Men band together an an attempt to stop him.
Warcraft - The monolithic video game franchise expands to a new medium.
Independence Day: Resurgence - The extraterrestrials that first threatened humanity 20 years ago have spent the past two decades preparing for and plotting for their shot at vengeance.
July
The BFG - Roald Dahl's beloved tale is brought once more to the big screen.
Ghostbusters - This revisiting of the 80s franchise features a mostly female cast.
Star Trek Beyond - The next installment of the rebooted movie series has JJ Abrams' thumbprint all over it.
August
Suicide Squad - Some of Gotham's most notorious criminals are recruited to undertake black ops-esque missions in exchange for clemency.
Pete's Dragon - A remake of the 1977 original in which an orphan flees from his abusive adoptive parents to the company of his pet dragon.
Spectral - Supernatural beings have taken over New York City and a very special team of operatives are brought in to restore order.
September
Patient Zero - After humanity is decimated by a horrific pandemic that renders most of humanity into violent rage monsters, a lone survivor finds he's able to communicate with them.
October
Gambit - Not to be outdone by Deadpool, the Ragin' Cajun will get his own movie.
November
Doctor Strange - Benedict Cumberbatch assumes the title role as a ruined surgeon whose life is forever changed after encountering a sorcerer.
Moana - The only daughter of a chief of a South Seas tribe sets off to explore the wilds of the Pacific.
December
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - The first of the Star Wars spinoff films focuses on a group of Rebels seeking to steal the structural plans of the Death Star.
Passengers - A spacecraft careens through the depths of space on a journey to distant planet when one of its stasis chambers malfunctions, causing a passenger to wake 60 years too early.
Assassin's Creed - Michael Fassbender stars in this movie adaptation of the wildly popular video game series.
Board Games/RPGs
As mentioned in a couple of our
round-up posts, most board game developers, even the largest ones, operate on a
quarterly schedule for their forecasts and releases with the latter generally
coinciding with major conventions. However, if all goes well we should see
several of the games we got a chance to try during Gen Con 2015. Also, the
always-excellent folks at BoardGameGeek have put together this compendium of what's slated to hit our tables in 2016.
Video Games
Video game releases tend to be a
bit more precise than their tabletop brethren in terms of their release
scheduling, but the volume of titles that will be available for PCs and
consoles is gargantuan. Game Informer did a commendable job of gathering up all those dates into this comprehensive list.
It's already shaping up to be an
excellent year! Here's to a very happy and healthy 2016!
Holy December Batman. Seriously, how are you here already? Apparent distortions in the space-time continuum notwithstanding, I hope you're all having great weekends and wonderful holiday seasons thus far. Before we all dive back into our respective yuletide preparations let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.
It's been a few weeks since we had some new images of Pluto from New Horizons. Well, if you're a fan of the dwarf planet it was worth the wait, as the latest batch of pictures are the sharpest we've seen yet.
When you think of commonly occurring elements in the known universe, you may think of Hydrogen and Helium, but would you correctly guess that this is the element that would come next in that sequence?
While we're...sort of...on the subject of helium, the ultralight element is proving to be the key ingredient in next-generation high-capacity storage drives.
We talked last week about the burgeoning 'war' of privatized space exploration, but here's a far less bellicose facet of the Blue Origins side of things guaranteed to make you smile: the reactions of the 400 scientists and researchers that worked on their firm's reusable rocket.
We've talked a bit over the past few weeks about the centennial of the publication of Einstein's Theory of Relativity but, if we get right down to it, what is spacetime...really?
For decades researchers have been stymied by the concept of cosmic microwave background radiation, as it has proven incredibly difficult to detect by direct means. The latest edition of Nature presents what may be the solution to this mystery.
In honor of 'Giving Tuesday' Jason Gidman, the host of 'DC All Access', launched a campaign to send 10,000 comic books overseas to provide some much-needed escapism and entertainment for actively serving military personnel. Want in? Here's how you can get involved.
Ever wonder just how much either of the Death Stars cost or just would have happened to the Galactic economy following the destruction of said superweapons? The School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis gave their best crack at coming up with a comprehensive response.
Mattel has brought back the Viewmaster in time for the holiday gift-giving season and the latest incarnation of this classic toy is a bit different than what you may remember.
This Lego-based kinetic sculpture of Sisyphus is both stunningly realistic and somehow very soothing to watch.
As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!
Hey guys; hope you're all having a great weekend thus far. We've been busy gearing up for Thanksgiving (lots grinding away in the office, but the premise of pie looms large in the immediate future). Mmmmm, pie. With a bit of vacation time incoming, I'm hoping to put in some serious hours in Fallout 4 and start putting together the 2016 cosplay lineup. In the meantime though, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.
Despite the prevalence and potential functionality of the bluntly direct "just attack your target" methodology inherent in so many games, there's a lot that can be said of taking a stealthy tack. Here are some of the best examples of the latter.
In what is likely another step towards the Singularity, AI developed by the National Institute of Informatics (Japan) was able to pass the infamously difficult exam associated with admission into Japan's universities.
It's one of the most enduring and analyzed quandaries that we, as a species, grapple with: why do we exist? According to one Harvard cosmologist, the answer may be dark matter.
We all share this ability, but why? We're are uncannily adept at sensing when another human is looking at us. Here comes the science.
Do you love model-making? Are you a Star Wars fan? Do you have two or so years to dedicate to a single project? If you answered yes to all of those then this soon-to-be-released model kit may be the perfect holiday gift for you.
Happy weekend everyone and sweet dreams to everyone who's finishing Extra Life 2015. This year's gaming marathon has raised nearly $6.4 million USD and counting! So many kudos to everyone who participated this year, now go get some much-deserved rest. And rest is definitely needed, as this upcoming week is chock-full of much-anticipated releases. For those of you still conscious, let's get down to the week in geekdom.
We're approaching the t-minus one month mark in the countdown to Episode VII. If a month is still too much to bear, Den of Geek has put together this massive compilation of all the posters, trailers, and assorted images that have been released to the public.
A team of researchers comprised of participants from UC San Francisco, the University of Michigan, and Washington University at St. Louis have identified a compound that, when applied as an eye drop, may clear up cataracts in humans. Their findings can be found in the latest edition of Science.
There are myriad examples in film and, increasingly, in real life wherein humans show more than a bit of disdain for AI programmed to be 'friendly' or otherwise helpful. As this sort of technology becomes more integrated into our lives, how will our behavior impact the way we relate to other humans?
NASA's JPL and the University of Texas at Austin have been working together to use satellites in order to observe patterns in the Earth's ocean currents. What they've found so far does not bode well in terms of the potential impacts of climate change.
This past Wednesday marked the exact centennial of Albert Einstein's historic, gravity-redefining lectures at the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Here's the story of how none of this would likely have come to pass were it not for the school of thought/obsession with a fictional planet.
How is it that supermassive black holes are capable of of flaring? Thanks to NASA's Explorer mission Swift and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, we may be closer than ever to answering that question.
We've been following the development of a potential EM drive as best we can and, allegedly, there have been a few new details released into the interwebs concerning this physics-defying device.
Holy October Batman. I suppose that means that any costuming plans for Halloween need to be kicked into high gear. Quick, on to the crafting! If all goes well, there may be a fun new tutorial that comes from this year's costume (here's a hint: somehow I'm not completely burnt out on anything wing related).
Speaking of Nintendo, the Wii U would like us to know that it still exists and there are at least 10 promising games that are forthcoming for the console.
We all know the kinds of angst that video games can instill in us, but is it possible for a game to teach us to manage or cope with stress? One intrepid developer believes that the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
Movies/TV
The good news: there will be entire 'lands' in Disneyland dedicated to Star Wars. The bad news: the current Star Wars themed rides and attractions will be shut down in the near future to make way for the construction.
Arguably the biggest science story of the week came courtesy of NASA with this announcement that the agency was able to confirm that liquid water is currently flowing on and in the surface of Mars.
IBM to Moore's Law: pfft, sucks to your intrinsic limits; we can replace our silicon semiconductors with carbon nanotube transistors.
Google is upgrading its quantum computer (D-Wave). Why does that matter? This upgrade could have far-reaching implications for energy consumption and quantum computing as a field.
Crowdfundables for Your Consideration
Ever wanted to be a vengeful Earth spirit able to show that pesky upstart humanity who's boss? Spirit Island allows you and up to three friends to do just that. This cooperative area-control board game pits players (and the elemental powers that they are armed with) against invading colonists. There are twelve days remaining to get in on this beautifully executed Kickstarter.
8 Kingdoms gives you not one, not two, but four distinct card-based games. All of the games boast a lightening-fast set up time and can be modified to accommodate between two and eight players. Bonus: magical strawberries! The campaign for this mini-library will run until October 23rd.
As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!
I'm so incredibly excited guys. Yesterday was the 2015 Boston Festival of Indie Games, one of our all-time favorite conventions. It'll take us a couple of days to go through all our notes and draft a full round-up of the event but, in the meantime, you can relive some of the best parts of BFIG via our Instagram postings. What, you say you need more distractions until the round-up is finished? Well then, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom!
Researchers at the University of Arizona believe they have located an enormous slab of ice resting just below the surface of Mars, further hinting that there may have once been life on the red planet (and raising the possibility for its future habitability by humans).
Also out of the University of Arizona is this research indicating that Jupiter's most volatile moon, Io, may consist of underground oceans of raging magma.
Are you a fan of Star Trek? The Smithsonian needs your help!
Anthony Bourdain commissioned a cooking knife to be crafted from a chunk of melted meteorite. Here are some of the images from that incredible process.
It's September? Seriously? Whew. It's entirely possible that I'll just never catch up with this year. We're in the process of gearing up for our last convention of 2015: the Boston Festival of Indie Games, which promises to be bigger and better than ever before. It's one of our favorite days of gaming and we'll be giddily bringing you all the highlights live from the campus of MIT via our social media pages. As always, we'll also bring you a full recap of all the fun in the week or so following the convention. In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom.
Comics
We're going to get a brand-new incarnation of the Hulk this coming December (it'll be a big first for Marvel!). Here's a sneak peek of what you can expect.
Movies/TV
The season premiere for the fourth season of Arrow is almost exactly a month away, but producers are taking pity on patient fans of the show by releasing images of John Diggles' new costume.
That collective excited gasp you may have heard this past Wednesday likely stemmed from fans of Doctor Who as they learned that River Song will be making an appearance in this year's Christmas Special.
Marvel has made it clear to Chris Evans that they would like for him to continue playing Captain America into Phase Three. Chris Evans would like Marvel to know that he's more than ok with that.
It sounds like something a Bond villain would unleash upon the seas: a poison-injecting submarine. Turns out this fiendish-sounding vehicle is not only real, but is a mechanical ally to coral reefs.
We've already talked a bit about Japan's preparations for the 2020 Olympic Games (holy artificial meteor shower Batman!). Now we have a few more details concerning these efforts. The Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency is working to create a speedy and accurate translator app that will assist medical crews if they have to attend to any emergencies during the Games.
Who knew light was so squeeze-able? The latest edition of Nature includes this research from St. John's College at the University of Cambridge that indicates individual particles of light can be 'squeezed', or brought to the lowest possible level of active electromagnetic activity.
'Heart in a Box', this device that keeps donated hearts alive and beating after they've been removed from their donor, but before they can be transplanted into a new patient, may just revolutionize organ transplantation as we know it.
At first glance, these pieces seem like they may just be computer-simulated images. They are, however, completely real works made entirely of glass. Bonus: they were 3D printed in glass using hybrid printing/glass blowing technology developed by researchers at Harvard and MIT.
Yes, we are eventually going to get a feature film starring Boba Fett, but a fan may already deliver that bounty hunter fix you're after with this film trailer.
It's one of the most enduring questions in sci-fi (or cinema for that matter): why are Imperial Stormtroopers just so terrible at firing their blasters? Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame feels he may have an answer for us.
It took only a handful of seconds for a certain round orange robot to capture the hearts of Star Wars fans around the world. Want to know more about BB-8? Here come the details.
Not enough adorable droid for you? Here's the commercial for the way in which you can own your own BB-8.
The Shepherd's Crown, the 41st and final installment of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series was released in the UK this past Wednesday. It will be available in the US on September 1st.
Vin Diesel is officially confirmed to return as the voice of Groot for Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2. The film is slated to hit theaters in May of 2017.
Are you planning on following along with Fear the Walking Dead? If so, you may want to keep an eye on AMC's website. The network is planning to develop a half-hour special covering the infamous zombie outbreak as it unfolds on a plane. This zombies on a plane bit will introduce new characters and content that will factor into the rest of Fear the Walking Dead. This content will air only online and AMC has not specified a release date, so keep an eye out.
It's officially been over a month now since Microsoft released Windows 10 upon the PC-using populace. How have things been going since then? Here are the results so far.
Ever wonder why the Earth doesn't feature nifty rings around it like some of our solar-system siblings have? Here comes the science.
Earlier this week, the Hubble telescope brought us these images of a 'butterfly effect' within the Twin Jets Nebula and the results are absolutely stunning.
It's a public health issue that plagues researchers every year: selecting the strains of the flu virus that will be the most likely to crop up during the winter and using those strains to create the annual flu vaccine. On Monday, immunologists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced that they are considerably closer to the proverbial holy grail: a universal flu vaccine.
On Friday, NASA launched what will be its longest isolation simulation for those individuals who are aiming to be the first humans on Mars.
We tend to lend a heaping helping of love to those individuals developing applications for virtual reality devices and today's going to be no exception. Meet James Blaha. If he has his way, he'll give us a way to use the Oculus Rift headset as a way to correct certain vision problems.
As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!
