{"id":958,"date":"2012-10-07T09:03:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T09:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/10\/07\/geek-month-in-review-september-2012\/"},"modified":"2012-10-07T09:03:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T09:03:00","slug":"geek-month-in-review-september-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/10\/07\/geek-month-in-review-september-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Geek Month in Review: September 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By JB Sanders<br \/>\nAnd so school starts.<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/what-if.xkcd.com\/10\/\"target=\"_blank\">Easy Alternate Earth<\/a><\/Strong><\/Strong><br \/>\nLooking for a wild alternative Earth for some Great SciFi story you have in your head? Look no further!<br \/>\nYes, it&#8217;s an xkcd What If article, but it&#8217;s all about an alternative Earth based on the simple idea: what if the Earth were rotated 90 degrees?<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_missing_treasure\"target=\"_blank\">Missing Some Treasure<\/a>?<\/Strong><br \/>\nI was doing some research, and came across a really handy GM tool. Or if you&#8217;re a thriller writer and need a handy lost treasure for your protagonists to stumble across, here you go. It&#8217;s the whole list. All known &#8220;lost&#8221; treasures. Enjoy.<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/monkeysee\/2012\/09\/17\/161277400\/the-25-magic-words-of-american-television\"target=\"_blank\">The Only 25 Words You&#8217;ll Ever Need to Name Your TV Show<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;m not sure how serious this is, but take any two words from the list in this article and they will form an immediately obvious and totally viable concept for a TV show. Don&#8217;t believe me? Try it out.<\/p>\n<p><Strong>See Curiosity Land on Mars &#8212; in HD<\/Strong><br \/>\nGreat video, color-corrected and enhanced, of the Curiosity lander reaching the surface of Mars. The video is all real-time.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"280\" height=\"157\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Esj5juUzhpU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><Strong>Lava Fountain &#8212; Up Close<\/Strong><br \/>\nThese crazy people got themselves a mostly heat-proof suit and filmed a lava flow (fountain?) up close and personal. Great video.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"280\" height=\"157\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DceHEBGVfj4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/bldgblog.blogspot.com\/2012\/09\/caves-of-nottingham_11.html\"target=\"_blank\">The Caves Beneath Nottingham<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nYes, the Robin Hood Nottingham. Apparently it&#8217;s sandstone bedrock makes it really easy, with hand tools, to dig out a cave. So everyone in the last two thousand years appears to have done that. The geek part of this is the laser-mapping the archaeologists are using to find all of the caves. Be sure to watch the movie. Also, there appears to be an upcoming enhanced-reality app for the caves &#8212; where you use the app to reveal what caves lie beneath buildings and streets by pointing your smart phone at them.<\/p>\n<p>A little addition for medievalists and beer lovers, another blog on the same private tour wrote up information about Nottingham&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ediblegeography.com\/beer-caves-redux\/\"target=\"_blank\">beer caves<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p><Strong>Hybrid Transparent Rocket Engine<\/Strong><br \/>\nScientist builds a rocket engine with a transparent acrylic rod and some oxygen. See the rocket burn and consume the fuel (acrylic) from the inside.<br \/>\nBonus: full explanation of how it was built.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"280\" height=\"157\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TLPWqCMb7DE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/09\/25\/science\/in-tempe-ariz-science-and-science-fiction-meet.html?_r=1&#038;ref=science&#038;fb_source=message\"target=\"_blank\">Where Science and Science Fiction Meet<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nNeal Stephenson and the president of Arizona State University have together setup the Center for Science and Imagination, a collaboration of scientists and scifi writers to create a better tomorrow. Or something like that. All sorts of Serious Names in scifi are involved.<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashgear.com\/new-interactive-ipad-app-shows-einsteins-brain-25249064\/\"target=\"_blank\">Einstein&#8217;s Brain<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nNow an iPad app. No, I&#8217;m not kidding. Stop laughing. The folks who have Einstein&#8217;s brain preserved took thousands of pictures and slides of his brain, and made it into an interactive app. Not sure it&#8217;s worth $10, but still.<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/what-if.xkcd.com\/13\/\"target=\"_blank\">Laser Pointers and the Moon<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nWhat if everyone pointed a laser pointer at the same spot on the moon? The latest xkcd What If article is up and it&#8217;s fun.<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.treehugger.com\/cars\/tesla-unveils-its-supercharger-network-drive-free-forever-sunlight.html\"target=\"_blank\">Solar Super-Charger<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nSounds like a scifi thing, right? Nope. Elon Musk, the savvy CEO of Tesla Motors (and backer of SpaceX) is planning to build fast-charging (full charge in 30 minutes or so) stations all over the US. Right now, he&#8217;s got 6 stations built in California, with more to come. The idea? Stop for food and charge your car while you wait. All using solar power.<\/p>\n<p><Strong>And in the Geek Dad Category<\/Strong><br \/>\nThis guy, his 4-year-old son, a toy train and space. Oh, also an HD camera, a weather balloon and an old cell phone with GPS (for locating it all afterwards). This guy sends his son&#8217;s toy train into space via weather balloon, and films it from liftoff to finish.<br \/>\nNote: some special-effects wizardry on the toy train&#8217;s &#8220;face&#8221; for amusement (or how the Dad thought his son saw the toy train Stanley).<br \/>\nWarning: Some mushy content!<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"280\" height=\"157\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XoMN-zg7r3M\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.startrek.com\/article\/guest-blog-leonard-nimoy-on-the-vulcan-salute\"target=\"_blank\">Leonard Nimoy on How the Vulcan Salute Got Its Start<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nDo you need more than the title? Go read it!<\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-19735959\"target=\"_blank\">Nazi Buddha Originally from Space<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nYou know what? I had to link this article just because of that headline, pulled shamelessly from the BBC&#8217;s website. The less sensational version of that headline goes: a statue of the buddha, recovered by a Nazi expedition in the 1930&#8217;s, was made from a meteorite that fell to Earth 15,000 years ago. <\/p>\n<p><Strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedump.com\/content\/tiny-dragon-discovered-indonesia\"target=\"_blank\">Tiny Dragons Found in Indonesia<\/a><\/Strong><br \/>\nNo, really. Look, there are photos!<\/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>Nazi Buddhas from space, Einstein&#8217;s brain as an iPad app, lost treasures and more in this month&#8217;s &#8220;Geek Month in Review&#8221; from JB Sanders!<\/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\/958"}],"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=958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}