Geek Attic

My Little Ponies Physics SMACKDOWN!

Slides are here

Science 1, MLP 0 (but plus 100 for AWESOME PONY ACTION)

Skip to about 0:50

Seriously COOL!

While there was some hubbub about the “waste” on the CDC website promoting preparing for a zombie apocalypse.

I think they did it RIGHT!  Seriously, while they didn’t really say OMG ZOMBIES! They did bring up the fact that we SHOULD prepare for disaster preparedness.  Zombie or not, having a meeting place, storing supplies, having a plan are ALL good things to do.

The zombie spin, was AMAZING.  Ordinarily a post MIGHT get 3,000 hits a week,  in one day the post received not only over 30,000 hits but then went down on Wednesday.

In an often rare spark of brilliance, a government organization GOT how to use the Internet to spread information.  Find a way to connect to the audience, give them a hook and they’ll read your message.

Check out the post about Zombie Emergency Preparedness

While a cute idea, the failure is that no cat will use it

Yes it’s a REAL product that is available.   I’ve got about 7 cats (between the wife and in-laws) and never really had this problem after calmly explaining to the cat to GTFO or die.

However, others may like the idea of having their cat perch so nicely by their desk.
Read more…

It’s always surprising how they cast people for roles.  Sometimes the casting is met with serious backlash.  However, IMDB (who are a really cool bunch of movie geeks) did something cool when listing the cast of Harry Potter. I can’t take credit for this muggle find, I found this over at the Hacked in Real Life WIN at FailBlog.

Found this via Boing Boing… originally from Wondermark click to see the clear image

Back in the 90′s I found my wrist getting EXTREMELY sore after working.  I would wake up in the morning with hand cramps.   I started to worry that I may have to have surgery, but found a great solution.  I adjusted my keyboard, and I got a new pointing device.

Read more…

Commander Keen, a fun 2D platformer which stole our hearts in the early 90′s (well mine at least) is turning 20.   YES 20!  Take a look at the pics from Good Gear Guide and take a walk down memory lane OR see how we did 2d games OLD SCHOOL!  What is always cool is that some of the lesser known games that the developers of CK made were Doom and Quake.   Granted they did make a movie based on Doom with “The Rock” for the only reason they didn’t for Keen was that Dwayne couldn’t pull off the AWESOME that Billy Blaze was. Read more…

• Love games? Check
• Hate DRM? Check
• Not always running on Windows? Check
• Love Charity? Check

Then the Humble Bundle is good for you!  Rather than talk it out, I’ll let them talk it out!  MUCH AWESOME!

So the games that are included

• Braid – Platformer and Puzzle game with the ability to freeze and rewind time.  Also a fantastic vision of what games can look like.
• Machininarium – Point and click adventure the demo beautifully drawn and can frustrate for HOURS!
• Osmosis – Absorb other blobs and squirt stuff to move around.  Simple but attractive, and a magical soundtrack.
• Revenge of the Titans – A strategy game where you build your minions and kick some butt!
• Cortex Command – Side scrolling might and mahem

I am a bit annoyed I PAID full price for Braid on XBOX Live Arcade and was happy with that. Now I get my games, I get to eat them too AND I get to help a charity.  Last time they did this they raised over $1.2 MILLION  and already they’ve gotten over $500k.

Who gets the money?

• EFF -Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Child’s Play – A charity that gives toys and games to kids in hospitals.
• Game Developers – They maketh the games!
• Tip to the Humble Bundle  Crew – They run the site.

This is a great way to get your game on and give to worthwhile charities So go to Humble Bundle and pick up some AWESOME games.

Update: I purchased the bundle as a birthday present… I’m still working through the games and they are worth it!

Source Humble Bundle

Updated 12/22/10 fixed missing game and purchased

I just saw this yesterday about an engineer at Facebook that created an rendering of 10 million relationships and some other related data and came up with this.

While it looks like a map, it actually is a plot/rendering of Facebook members and their relationships.  What is interesting is that the way we relate online is very much virtual we are still bound by our geography and even governments.  From the creator,

“What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.”

It’s really amazing how through technology we are able to see ourselves and our relationship to others.  It also shows the amount of online data trails we leave and how they can be used to create a “picture of our world.”

Source Visualizing Friendships by Paul Butler