{"id":1087,"date":"2011-07-07T16:58:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T16:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2011\/07\/07\/geek-month-in-review-june-2011\/"},"modified":"2011-07-07T16:58:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T16:58:00","slug":"geek-month-in-review-june-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2011\/07\/07\/geek-month-in-review-june-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Geek Month in Review: June 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By JB Sanders<\/p>\n<p>The hot has begun&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.physorg.com\/news\/2011-05-tunnel-temple-mexico.html\"target=\"_blank\">Because This Will End Well<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nArchaeologists in Mexico have found a previously unknown tunnel under the Temple of the Snake in Teotihuacan. They estimate that it&#8217;s been sealed for over 1,800 years and there are chambers at the end of the passage. Those SciFi movie plots don&#8217;t just write themselves&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5808204\/muppets-and-fraggles-climb-aboard-serenity\/gallery\/1\"target=\"_blank\">Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Serenity<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nNerd and geek combined into one: cross-overs that never existed.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.angusrshamal.com\/best-of-bts-2\/\"target=\"_blank\">Behind the Scenes Photos<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nFrom little movies like Fritz Lang&#8217;s Metropolis and Stanley Kubrick&#8217;s The Shining. Other shots:<br \/>\n<em>How they did the Empire Strikes Back text crawl (you&#8217;ll be surprised).<br \/>\nA shot of Alfred Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren and some birds.<br \/>\nA shot inside the giant alien spacecraft in Alien.<br \/>\nA picture of Max Schreck lounging creepily. (Bonus geek points if you know the Other Movie this ties into, all too eerily.)<\/em><br \/>\nReally, why are you still reading this blurb? Click on the link already! <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/news\/2011\/06\/activisions-skylanders-erases-the-line-between-toy-and-video-game.ars\"target=\"_blank\">Scary Great Toy Mashup or Sign of the Toy Apocalypse?<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nSo, combine collectible action figures, with collectible card games, Pokeman, Gauntlet (yes, the venerable arcade game) and console-based video games. Oh, and throw in some old-fashioned leveling-up madness. What do you have? Skylanders. It&#8217;s a video game for consoles (all of them, I guess). It&#8217;s fairly standard Gauntlet-like collect things and smash monsters. However, the character you play is based on what actual toy action figure you plug into their USB-connected platform. Before your head explodes, you have to use one of the action figures (32 at release) they&#8217;re producing for the game. The plus side is that any items you collect or leveling-up you do with that specific action figure are stored &#8212; inside the action figure. You can take the guy with you to a friends house and have all those abilities and loot you got before. The game comes with 3 figures, and they&#8217;re going to be releasing &#8220;booster packs&#8221; with random figures inside.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com\/\"target=\"_blank\">Awesome People Hanging Out Together<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the name of the link and the subject matter all in one. Photos of unusual pairings, all looking like they&#8217;re candid shots. Lots of pop culture icons in there, plus some geek favorites: Niels Bohr &#038; Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (many, many years ago, looking all hippy and geeky), Neil Patrick Harris &#038; Stephen Colbert, Chuck Norris &#038; Bruce Lee (that&#8217;s a money shot). And something just for a conspiracy-theorist&#8217;s dream: Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Warren G. Harding, and Harvey Firestone (I mean, seriously); or Salvador Dali &#038; Walt Disney.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/news\/2011\/06\/how-scientists-turned-a-living-cell-into-a-green-laser.ars\"target=\"_blank\">Laser from a Living Cell<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nAre atomic mutants not far behind?<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-middle-east-13715296\"target=\"_blank\">Well, The Assyrian Dictionary is Done<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nAnd it only took 90 years!<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5813447\/bulgarian-street-artists-turn-soviet-war-memorial-into-superman-wolverine-and-other-superheroes\"target=\"_blank\">Now, This is Graffiti I Can Get Behind<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nJust an inspired piece of art. Imagine drawing a mustache on a famous portrait, and then take it up about ten notches.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/io9.com\/5813532\/dogs-are-better-than-dna-tests-at-telling-identical-twins-apart\"target=\"_blank\">From the &#8216;Dogs Can Smell Better Than You&#8217; Files<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nScientists have discovered that dogs are better at telling twins apart than, wait for it, DNA tests. Turns out there IS a genetic difference between twins, but it&#8217;s so small that modern DNA tests have trouble distinguishing between identical twins. Not so with dogs.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/d-dalus-uav-design\/18972\/\"target=\"_blank\">This is How Science-Fiction Becomes Reality<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nAustrian scientists have developed a new way to do what rotors on helicopters and airplanes have done before now. Heck, their flying machines don&#8217;t even need wings. They produce thrust by using rotating turbine-like blades, and because those blades can be adjusted, the D-Dalus can produce thrust in any direction, 360 degrees. It&#8217;s also fine with rough weather and nearly silent. <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/badastronomy\/2011\/06\/22\/an-observatory-thats-bigger-on-the-inside\/\"target=\"_blank\">How to Build an Awesome Enclosure for Your Telescope<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nHow? You make it into a TARDIS replica. Seriously.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/news.discovery.com\/space\/home-made-mars-habitat-tests-lifes-limits-110623.html\"target=\"_blank\">Mars in a Bottle<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nScientists create an artificial Mars-like environment and then toss in some Earth microbes to see how they fare. It does sound a little like a SciFi Channel Saturday movie, why do you ask? <\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-13874671\"target=\"_blank\">Why Are Homo Sapiens the Only Hominids Still Hanging Around?<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nMaybe because homo erectus used the same axe design for a million years. Yeah, seriously.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/news\/2011\/06\/the-lego-barad-dur-50000-pieces-two-months-of-construction-pure-awesomethe-lego-barad-dur-50000-pieces-2-months-to-build-pure-awesome.ars\"target=\"_blank\">The Lego(tm) Barad-d\u00c3\u00b9r<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the heart of Mordor in Lego(tm) form. Evil Eye included. Check out the link at the bottom of the article to the Flickr pictures.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.treehugger.com\/files\/2011\/06\/3d-printing-with-sun-and-sand.php\"target=\"_blank\">Print Anything: Input Just Sand and Sun<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\nOk, not anything, but lots of things. It&#8217;s a 3D printer powered by the sun that just uses sand as a material input.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Slow is Creepy, and Trippy<\/strong><br \/>\nEver wondered what that sound a modem makes when it does the initial hand-shaking connection-making with the host computer would sound like if you slowed it down 700%? Well, wonder no more!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"320\" height=\"195\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IF2v32xCD0Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<strong>Note:<\/strong> if you&#8217;re not old enough to know what a dial-up modem is, sounded like or was for, look it up on wikipedia already.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/john1.bmp\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/john1.bmp\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"272\" height=\"240\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2629\" \/><\/a> <strong>About John:<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>John&#8217;s a geek from way back. He&#8217;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&#8217;s on his desk).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Geek Credentials:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>RPG:<\/strong> Blue box D&#038;D, lead minis, been to GenCon in Milwaukee.<br \/>\n<strong>Computer:<\/strong> TRS-80 Color Computer, Amiga 1000, UNIX system w\/reel-to-reel backup tape<br \/>\n<strong>Card games:<\/strong> bought Magic cards at GenCon in 1993<br \/>\n<strong>Science:<\/strong> Met Phil Plait, got time on a mainframe for astronomy project in 1983<br \/>\n<strong>His Blog:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/glenandtyler.blogspot.com\"target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/glenandtyler.blogspot.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First of all, relax, there is at least a Doctor Who reference this month.  There&#8217;s also Muppets and Fraggles playing Firefly, a little Lord of the Rings in Lego, Kathy Griffin hanging out with Anderson Cooper and Gloria Steinem, the imagination impaired homo erectus, and more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}