Category: Geek Stuff

The Geek Month in Review: December 2014

by Administrator, posted in Art, Books, Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Movies, Science

By JB Sanders

Happy Yule!

Alien Fonts
Great article on the fonts and symbols used in the movie Alien, and how they influenced other scifi movies. Bonus points for a tie-in with The Secret Doctrine by Helena Blavatsky.

Touchable Holograms
Yeah, you read that right. Projected images that have haptic feedback — meaning you can feel them. Go ahead and let your brain explode on that one.

Hand-Illuminated, Hand-Bound Copy of the Simallarion
You remember that Tolkien book, the one that is basically lifted from his hand-written notes about the world of the Lord of the Rings, but it is basically unreadable except as a reference work? Yeah, this German art student decides to just go ahead and create a copy of the book by hand. It’s awesome.

Margaret Hamilton, Lead Software Engineer, Project Apollo
Yeah, that headline pretty much tells the whole story, but for the details, read the article.

Interactive 3D Display
Nope, not the same as the link above. This is more like a telepresence version of that toy with all the pins in it that everyone always presses their hand into. Only with color.

Lord of the Rings Partially Explained
Ever wonder how Gandalf got to be so badass that he could go toe-to-toe with a Balrog? Check out the video!

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

The Geek Month in Review: November 2014

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

Is it Turkey Day yet?

Ancient Home Video Games in Your Browser
Want to play your favorite Atari 2600 game from yesteryear? Want to do it without leaving your web browser? Ta da!

Bowling Ball and Feathers Falling in a Vacuum
Wanna see how gravity (mostly) reacts the same to two objects with different weights? Watch the video.

Algae Farm Over Highway Eats Pollution
A French and Dutch design firm has created a prototype algae farm over a highway in Geneva, Switzerland. It eats the CO2 from car and truck exhaust, and could be used to produce biodiesel, green electricity, medication, cosmetics, or even food.

Interact With 3D Models of Space Vehicles Like Iron Man Would
Anyone else remember that scene in Iron Man where Tony Stark (billionaire, philanthropist, genius) is moving the holo projections around like they’re real-world objects, instead of cool bits of light in the air? NASA rocket scientists have developed an app (definitely iOS, possibly others) that uses the smartphone’s camera, a real-world reference marker, and superimposes a full 3D model of a variety of NASA vehicles and satellites into virtual space. Seriously, this is scifi-type future stuff, here. You can turn the “reference marker” (or printed piece of paper with the special pattern) and the 3D model of, say, the Mars Curiosity rover will move with it. You can zoom in on specific details simply by moving the phone closer to the virtual 3D model. The future is here, people.

Search your favorite app store for: “Spacecraft 3D”

Here’s a video, showing off the action:

Island Discovered in the Arctic
No, this isn’t a headline from 1894. No, it is not a story featuring a strange doctor, and his fetish for animal/human hybrids. Nor will there be dinosaurs. Probably. Russian military helicopter pilots, on a return from a supply mission saw an island in the Arctic ocean north of Tiksi (it’s in Siberia). It wasn’t on any maps. So why now? That area is normally covered with ice for much, if not all of the year, until recently. The low-lying island simply wasn’t visible before. Kinda cool that we’re still discovering islands.

Fire-breathing Robot Dragon
And … you already clicked the link, didn’t you? It’s a full-sized (e.g. Huge, for those Pathfinder/D&D folks out there) semi-autonomous walking dragon robot. That breathes fire.

Spiral Undersea City
Apparently some Japanese investors are planning on opening an underwater spiral sea-city by 2030.

Science and Music Combined
Into an awesome show of fire, water, and lightning. All real, no special effects.

Ancient Computer in LEGO
Remember the Antikythera mechanism? That weird series of gears found in a shipwreck, and dated to 1500 BCE? Scientists later figured out, using x-ray tomography, that the mechanism was designed to predict eclipses. And it does. With startling accuracy. Now see how that works, through the wonder of LEGO.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Bible Verses By Heart

by Administrator, posted in Books, Christianity/Catholicism, Geek Stuff, Religion

I received word about an iTunes app that I thought some of you might be interested in.

Penguin, creators of the popular “Poems by Heart” app, launches “Bible Verses by Heart”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The Bible is the most important book for millions of Christians around the world, but it’s also a classic work of literature. Now, Penguin Random House is proud to launch “Bible Verses by Heart”, an app that will appeal not only to the faithful, but to those who view the Bible as literature and want to better understand the extent to which the “Good Book” permeates our culture and values.

Inspired by the successful” Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics” app—which has more than 30,000 active users a month, has been downloaded over 412,000 times, and is one of only six educational apps recognized as an “App Store Best of 2013”—“Bible Verses By Heart” is a beautiful, intuitive app designed to help readers memorize key passages from the Bible. Joel Fotinos, a licensed minister and the publisher of Tarcher Books, a Penguin Random House imprint, was hugely influential in determining the app’s 20 passages, which were gathered from the Old Testament, the New Testament, as well as Psalms and Proverbs.

“We wanted ‘Bible Verses by Heart’ to appeal not only to people who love the Bible and want to memorize key scriptures, but also to casual readers interested in knowing more about it—i.e., those who see the Bible referenced in literature, the news, and in popular culture, and would like a better understanding of the Bible’s verses, selections, and stories,” said Fotinos. “We narrowed down the selections to what I jokingly call “The Bible’s Greatest Hits” – meaning those passages that would have the greatest recognition and that fit within the guidelines we had set.”

Fotinos then ran the passages by a tough set of critics—a pair of nuns from a well-known Christian monastic community. The result: a collection that draws from five different translations and encompasses everything from 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 and Genesis 1:1-2:3 to Psalm 40:1-17 (A Prayer for Help) and Judges 5:1-31 (Song of Deborah).

“Since these are poetic selections, we weren’t trying to create a ‘Cliff’s Notes’ version. Nor did we want to choose only inspiring verses,” said Fotinos. “Rather, we picked selections that would add to a person’s Bible literacy. When someone memorizes these passages, they gain a greater appreciation of how pervasive these verses are in our culture. Eventually we hope to record and include more selections from the Bible to keep this project expanding and evolving.”

“Bible Verses by Heart” is free to download, and comes with three free passages, with 21 more available for in-app purchase. As users progress through five stages of difficulty, they are rewarded with high scores and Game Center Achievements. They also have the ability to record and share their own recitals via email and SoundCloud. The app was designed and developed by inkle, who also designed “Poems by Heart from Penguin Classics”.

“The Bible Verses by Heart” app is available for download for iPhone or iPad via iTunes. Click to read more about the “Bible Verses by Heart” app on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-verses-by-heart/id925083573?mt=8

Now because I’m like this, and I know a bunch of you would be curious too, I checked with the public relations person for this project to find out exactly which Bibles these verses were coming from. As many of us know, that can make a real difference. It turns out it’s pretty diverse. “Bible Verses by Heart” uses passages from the King James Version, New King James Version, New American Standard, New Revised Standard Version, and the Contemporary English Version.

The Geek Month in Review: October 2014

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Symbols

By JB Sanders

On to Halloween!

Animated Cake
And no, I do not mean animated as in part of an animated movie. I mean, Disney has a special wedding package for folks getting married at the enchanted castle (Disney World, mind you), and it includes a cake that they project various animations on top of. It looks like the cake itself is showing short little movies.

Not Your Average Zombie Survival Guide
It has all the links, illustrations, and how-to’s you could ask for and more. Just be sure to read, and prep, all this stuff before the actual End of the World.

Paper Airplane Machine Gun
Words you didn’t think would go together, right? Well, engineers can be crazy, and what happens when you put science and crazy together? Mad science. Or I guess, mad engineering.

Soviet Space Image Catalog
Ever wonder what happened to all the photos the Soviets took with all the space probes they got into space? Well, someone else did, too, and they went out and collected them into one handy web page. Plus digital remastering. Want to see the surface of Venus?

Super Geeky LEGOs
Check out this gallery of photos from BrickCon, the largest LEGOs con around.

Cosmic Ray Detector via Distributed Array? Sure, Use Cell Phones
So some kooky scientists realized that the they could “build” a cosmic ray detector using an app on cell phones.

Force Field Umbrella
Ok, not exactly a “force field”, and more like a “field of forced air”. Picture carrying around a very special fan, which blows a field of air around you to not only keep the rain off your head, but also the rest of you.

Working iPhone Built in Minecraft
Yeah, so, we’ll be seeing more and more of these crazy devices in virtual spaces.

Random Island Generator
No, not a giant machine that actually makes islands (although that’s only a matter of time), but a web-based program that creates maps randomly. Useful if you’re building a world and need a few islands pronto.

City Built in Minecraft
Apparently it’s all about the Minecraft this month. Take a virtual tour of a city that took 2 years to build. It has 96 buildings, and the creator plans even more. These are full-sized skyscrapers, people, not some kind of model, they’re functional.

Random Generators, Various
Speaking of tools to generate things, here’s a website with a way to come up with names (in varieties like dwarf, Drow, orc, arabic), treasure, magic items, Giant’s bags, calendars, baubles, cities, and spell books. Enjoy!

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Neon Future Sessions

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Music, Science

To celebrate the release of his latest album, “Neon Future I”, electronic music artist and producer DJ Steve Aoki teamed up with Wired to launch a new digital series, “Neon Future Sessions”. In the series he’ll be sitting down with a variety of cultural and technological visionaries to discuss how they see our future world evolving.

This first episode is intriguing, but who would expect anything less from a chat with Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and director of engineering at Google. Sadly the episode is only 5 minutes long.

And for those of you who may be curious about what DJ Steve Aoki is like at his day job, I give you “Rage the Night Away” by DJ Steve Aoki and featuring the rapper Waka Flocka Flame from the “Neon Future I” album.

The Geek Month in Review: September 2014

by Administrator, posted in Art, Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

Woo! Fall!

Alien Landscape on Earth
Because it’s very isolated, the biome of Socotra island (off the coast of Yemen) is unique on Earth. And looks it.

The Nerd-Fu is Strong With This One
So, your typical person looks at a box of crayons, and thinks: “I can make art with these!” This guy? He doesn’t draw an elaborate picture with the crayons. He carves the crayons. Into scifi nerdy sculptures.

Loudest Known Sound
The loudest sound known to have occurred, on Earth mind you, was the eruption/explosion of Krakatoa. How bad was it? People 100 miles away suffered permanent hearing loss.

Plum Island for Sale
If you aren’t aware of Plum Island’s reputation, you’re in for a treat. It’s long been rumored to be the site of the US Government’s biological warfare research, or something even more sinister and oddball. Officially, it’s been the Plum Island Animal Disease Center since 1954. But now it’s for sale, and if isn’t going to be the source of the zombie/plague apocalypse, then it’d be a swell place to survive one of those. It has it’s own power plant, and water treatment facility. Plus tons of other interesting features.

For some background, the Wikipedia view of Plum Island:

Brain Surgery & 3D Printing
For some particularly difficult brain surgery procedures, doctors have started taking very high-resolution scans of the patient, printing a replica of their brain in a semi-solid medium, and testing the procedure ahead of time. They even print the blood vessels in a different color medium. How wild is that?

Postcards from the Great Exhibition
If you’re not familiar with it, the Great Exhibition was the first world’s fair, encompassing 13,000 exhibits under a purpose-built structure called the Crystal Palace. It’s a popular destination for time travelers, since it was easy to blend into the crowd of almost 6 million visitors, and everyone went. The engravings are themselves beautiful examples of High Victorian art.

Cheap and Easy Hydrogen Production
One of the downsides of renewable forms of energy is that if you don’t use it when it’s produced, it’s gone. And there aren’t any good storage solutions, to hold onto that energy for later use. In comes hydrogen. If you can use the renewable energy to extract hydrogen from common sources (like from water), you can store up the volatile gas for later use — either burned directly, or combined with other elements to produce electricity directly. Some scientists have found a way to produce hydrogen far more easily than was previously possible.

Don’t Screw With the Swiss
I think they invented the term “ruthlessly neutral”. Here’s a primer on why it’s never worth it to invade, despite their strategic deposits of chocolate.

Massive Old Prison for Sale
It was built in 1886, and is no longer in use. It has 85 acres, 47 buildings, a baseball diamond, basketball court, and of course, a lot of barbed wire. Need a little vacation place? Or an apocalypse compound? Here you go.

DC Superheroes Like Norman Rockwell Would Do ‘Em
Ever wonder, in an idle moment, what comic books might look like if famous artists had done them instead of the slightly-less-famous-artists who did? Wonder no more!

What Real Space Battles Would Look Like
Ok, this video is more instructional and party-pooper than cool special effects. But take a look at the silliness that is Hollywood space battles.

Largest Medieval City in the World? Angkor
Yes, that Angkor — the one made famous by the largest religious complex in the world (three times the size of the Vatican), Angkor Wat. The city recently discovered surrounding it was over 1000 square kilometers at its peak — it took 700 years before London was that big. How did they discover this massive city? Lasers.

Eye of the Tiger — On Dot Matrix
I’m sure you’ve heard tunes played on dot matrix printers before — the benighted wailing of a lost generation. But this is so awesome, you have to give it gander. That’s right, gander, because you can watch it produce it’s remarkably close rendition.

And on floppy drives, just for comparison:

Make Your Own Cloaking Device
No, really. It’s all about optics, man.

Fighting in Full Plate? Yuch!
So some French medievalists demonstrate how maneuverable those knights in full plate armor really were. Answer? Pretty damned maneuverable. Though I can see why they might not be the stealthiest bunch out there.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

The Geek Month in Review: August 2014

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Movies, Science, Television

By JB Sanders

Is it still summer?

Live Inside a Volcano
This sounds like an ideal villain lair, and the pictures in the article support that claim.

Ape Selfies!
This is how the end begins: ape selfies. Read how a photojournalist, whose camera was pinched by a black macaca nigra monkey who then took thousands of photos (including a selfie), is now claiming that Wikipedia has no right to use the picture. Wikipedia is claiming that the copyright “belongs” to the monkey, and therefore is in the public domain.

The monkey’s lawyers were unavailable for comment.

Babylon5 on the Big Screen?
It could happen! Seriously, JMS is working on a script and seeking funding right now.

Self-Assembling Origami Robots
Sure, they start out flat and uninteresting, but they don’t stay that way. Watch as a robot assembles itself out of flat metal and walks away.

Glow-accented Shelving
Got a crack in that nice piece of lumber you bought for shelves? No worries! Fill it in with glowing resin. Not sure how that would look? Check out this album.

Neuronic Processors
IBM has released a chip that includes synapse-like elements on the chip. The coming future of AI? Probably. But it’s no photonics.

The Perhapsatron
So in the 50’s, this guy (scientist Jim Tuck) built what he hoped was going to be a fusion reactor, and it looks a lot like the arc reactor from Tony Stark’s lab. That’s Iron Man, folks. What a great kick-off to a scifi story, though. And he really did call it the Perhapsatron.

Best Birthday Present Ever? Secret Treasure Room
So these parents discover a storage space next to their kid’s bedroom, but instead of telling him about it, they hide the entrance behind a heavy dresser, wait until his 4th birthday, have it secretly renovated, and make it into his own Secret Treasure Room. Personally, I would have gone for more of a pirate motif in my Secret Treasure Room, but it’s not bad.

Dr Who Themed Restaurant
Who’d have thunk it? Tucked away in a sleepy upstate NY town, this eatery features “fish fingers” (french toast sticks) and pudding, plus a smashing decor.

Pyramids and Beehives of Mars
MakerBot (3D printer makers) and JPL (without rockets, it’s just science) solicited entries in a contest for a Mars habitat design that could be constructed using — you guessed it — 3D printers. Check out the three entries that one, including one pyramid design and one based on beehives.

How to Build a 1KB Hard Drive — In Minecraft
That’s right, build a virtual digital storage device inside the game (“game”) Minecraft. Essentially, this person builds a giant assembly of blocks and moving bits to create the drive. It gives me ideas for a way to “store” some kind of special encryption key — just encode it onto a virtual storage device you built inside a game, and let’s see someone figure that out.

Robot-driven 3D-Printed Hoverbike
I think we may have reached a nirvana of geek topics: 3D printed, robots, and hover bikes. Woo!

The Space Economy
What benefits there will be to mining the asteroid belt, in a handy bunch of info graphics.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Geek Month in Review: June and July 2014

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By J.B. Sanders

June – Summer!

Personal Drone Selfie
Meet the AirDog, a drone designed to let you photograph yourself, generally being marketed to the sports crowd, but so many other uses come to mind.

LEGO Fusion
It’s like playing SimCity, only when you add buildings, you prototype them in LEGO first, then take a picture of the prototype, and the virtual building springs up in your city. Wild.

Trampoline Park in Abandoned Mine
Yeah, you read that right — these nut cases strung trampolines all over this abandoned mine, added funny lights and made a theme park.

Dead Trees Not Decaying Around Chernobyl
Not exactly because of Magic Radiation(tm) but due to the fact that a lot of the microbial life that should be busily helping the decay process along is gone.

July – More summer!

Indoor Farming Better Than Outdoor
Japanese scientist/farmer (been a while since we could use that one) has setup a hydroponic farm using LED lights and a tighter-than-normal day/night cycle to speed up production 250%.

Futurama in 3D Live Action Video
What would Futurama look like if some geniuses (genii?) threw some computer time and some serious artists at it? Wonder no more! It would be cool if this were a test shot for a future MMORPG or something, right?

Skeet Shooting With a Tank
That’s it. You don’t need more than that. Just watch the video.

Geekiest Basement Ever? You Decide
Guy has over $500k in Star Trek memorabilia. Good grief!

SciFi Writers, Start Your Engines
So here’s an odd thing: giant sinkhole in Siberia. Sure, sure, nothing all that odd about that — it seems like half the stories of sinkholes come from Russia (the other half from Florida). What’s odd about this one is that it’s HUGE, and might be more than a sinkhole. More like a crater, in fact.

Siberian Mystery Crater Solved
Turns out some permafrost ground simply flash-melted. Also, some pretty spectacular pictures of Russian arctic tundra.

Japan Getting Luxury Trains in 2017
They look like movie sets for that CyberPunk epic, during the bit where the hero is on a luxury train.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Geek Month in Review: May 2014

by Administrator, posted in Creatures, Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By J.B. Sanders

May flowers!

Robo-snakes
Nothing else to add: robot snakes. With video and explanations. Creep factor 5!

How to Flood-proof Manhattan
Anyone else remember when this kind of thing seemed like science fiction? Yeah, me too. This time, especially after Hurricane Sandy, people are seriously talking about it.

Shipping Container Houses
Normally, when you hear that phrase, you picture stuff that is one step up from “shack” and many steps away from cool homes. Not so with the ones in this article. They look like something you see in Architectural Digest.

Concrete-Eating Robot
I know, it sounds like a bad scifi movie, or the name of a pulp novel from the ‘60s. Nope! It’s a robot, still in the design phase, which will disassemble a concrete building, breaking up the concrete into cement, sand and aggregate. All this is done right on the construction site, and it leaves the rebar naked and ready for re-use (or recycling). Pretty nifty!

Shell Grotto — Made by Who?
There’s a grotto in Kent, England, that is decorated with millions of seashells, 4.6 million to be precise. It was discovered in 1835 by some explorers, and when I say “discovered”, I mean it. No one knows who created the grotto, why the decorated it that way, or really much of anything else. It’s pretty snazzy, though.

Billion-User MMO Using VR? Yes, please!
So VR reviving tech company Oculus was recently purchased by Facebook. What are they going to do with all that money and computing power? Build an MMO that a billion simultaneous users can play, and since it’s Oculus, it’s going to be in VR. Sound like a scifi book you’ve read?

Self-Healing Plastic
Yup, it’s another step towards androids dreaming of electric sheep. Scientists have developed a polymer that has cappilaries, much like our own tissue, so that healing plastic will flow into and fill cracks.

Robot Hand and Arm Prosthetic Approved for Use
Cyber-enthusiasts rejoice! The FDA has approved the prosthetic for general use, after it was developed by DARPA. It’s capable of doing very fine manipulation, such as picking up an egg or zipping up a jacket.

Solar Roads
Sounds like a scifi novel, does’t it? This little company has devised hexagonal tiles that could be used instead of pavement, and the suckers are solar panels, generating power. They also have heating elements, so they can keep roads clear of snow and ice. And they have lights, so they can be used to create lines of light on the road, instead of paint. Going “holy crap!” yet? How about the designers estimate that if all 31,000 square miles of currently paved road was instead paved with their tiles, it would produce three times the electricity the entire country uses.

Better, much better video:

Largest Dinosaur Ever
Imagine something as big as 14 elephants. Or larger than several buses. HUGE.

Hover Bikes!
For real, even. There’s a company taking pre-orders for them. Not quite the flying cars of the 1950’s future, but close. So close!

The Sand Chart
In case you need a reference showing the approximate size of all the different kinds of grains of sand, here you are.

Oldest Living Things on Earth
It’s a photo book, travelogue, and text book, all in one. Photographer Rachel Sussman explores organisms, such as trees, lichen, fungi, and others, that surpass 2,000 years old. In fact, one of the organisms, a tree-root structure in Idaho, is over 80,000 years old.

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/

Geek Month in Review: April 2014

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Guest Authors, Science

By JB Sanders

April showers!

Invisible Car
No, really! And it’s being used to help drivers navigate their giant-assed SUV’s, not avoid those bad-guy spies. Check out Land Rover’s video of their prototype. Watch the hood of the car vanish, and show you the road beneath the car. You know, so you don’t run over any bunnies or peasants. Unintentionally.

Glow-in-the-Dark Roads Now Here
The Netherlands has painted the first road with special glow-in-the-dark paint, eliminating the need for streetlights, and supposedly greatly enhancing driver safety. Bet it looks cool, too.

Giant Pyramids in the Middle of Nowhere – Modern Edition
The US military, paragons of strange architecture in the middle of the wilderness, built a strange pyramid building in the 1960’s as part of the antiballistic missile system. It’s weird looking.

European Towns Recreated in China
It’s weird, but it also seems like someone should be making travel plans and taking photos in “Europe”, to fake out all their friends. I’m waiting for someone to shout “challenge accepted!” Anytime…

Babbage’s Great Calculating Engine
Is it just me, or does the plan (in the link) of Babbage’s Calculating Engine look kinda … fractal?

How to Build Your Own Secret Bookcase Door
Yup, step-by-step instructions and photos included. It looks fairly easy. You’ll need your own bookcase, nook, tools, and DIY skills, though.

Acoustically Perfect Below-Ground Theater Unused for 70 Years
Right below a piano store in Boston, the theater closed in 1942 and never re-opened. For a cool $6 million you can probably get it back up and running.

Warhol Works Recovered from 30-year-old Amiga Disks
Did you know that Commodore Computers commissioned Andy Warhol to produce works for the release of the Amiga 1000? Yeah, neither did I. Handy folks have recovered copies of the work from 30-year-old disks, in what is apparently an “obscure format”. Probably something like AmigaPaint files (or whatever that program was called).

Behind the Scenes: 2001, a Space Odyssey
See Kubrick smoking at an acute angle (rotating set), guys in monkey suits (the ape kind), an obelisk, a moonscape set, and more!

About John:
John’s a geek from way back. He’s been floating between various computer-related jobs for years, until he settled into doing tech support in higher ed. Now he rules the Macs on campus with an iron hand (really, it’s on his desk).

Geek Credentials:
RPG: Blue box D&D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.
Computer: TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w/reel-to-reel backup tape
Card games: bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993
Science: Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983
His Blog:http://www.glenandtyler.com/