This Week in Geekdom

Happy weekend everyone! Whew, what an awesomely busy week. There was a vague mention of certain ventures a few days back and, though we're still in the very early stages, that basically translates into the medium-to-long term goal of building out this little blog into something more like a "real" website. Part of achieving that goal will be delivering more content and creating more interactive opportunities for you guys (woot for more free stuff), so be on the lookout for more features in the not-so-distant future! 

TV/Movies

The amusing Twitter war of one-upsmanship that has been ongoing between directors JJ Abrams and Zack Snyder was taken to a new level this week when Mr. Abrams released this footage of 'his' Millennium Falcon:

While we're in a Star Wars frame of mind, rumors about the forthcoming film abounded this week and included these potential cameos and this Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff movie.

Nick Frost, he of Shaun of the Dead and The World's End fame, will be starring in this year's Dr. Who Christmas special.

Tywin Lannister may reach Game of Thrones audiences from beyond the grave.

It's official chimichanga aficionados. We'll be getting a Deadpool movie on February 12th, 2016.

Games

If you happen to both a fan of Minecraft and the owner of a Windows phone, you got quite a treat this week. Microsoft's Xbox chief Phil Spencer confirmed that the recently acquired and widely beloved game will be made available on the phones. He also hinted that bringing the game to other Windows moble devices, like the Surface, was not out of the realm of possibility.

Violent video games have long been held as an easy scapegoat for any number of social ills, particularly those affecting young people. However, a new study detailed in the latest edition of Psychology of Violence indicates that such games may actually have a variety of interpersonal benefits.

One intrepid Counter-Strike fan has turned the entirety of the indie exploration game Gone Home into a playable map in the popular first-person shooter.

Science/Technology

On Thursday, the Annals of Improbable Research and Harvard University handed out their annual Ig Nobel Prizes for distinguished but unorthodox scientific inquiry. This is a brief rundown of the winners and their fantastical projects (who knew that cured pork could stop nosebleeds?). 

Throughout this year, we've chatted about the purported discovery of the gravitational waves stemming from the origins of the universe. Though that study is now under review, the question remains: How does one see the origins of the universe?

GPU makers Nvidia came up with a novel way to promote the quality of their wares. On Thursday the company released these images of the Apollo 11 landing that had been re-created and rendered with Nvidia products. The images were created in an attempt to prove that the lunar landing did, in fact, occur.

Can you guess which of these is a real lunar landing image? (answer: the one on the right)
Lockheed Martin will be resurrecting defensive turrets as a features on their military grade aircraft and giving them a modern upgrade in the form of lasers.

The long, improbable, and filled-with-missteps history of Radio Shack.

Paul Martin, the Inspector General of NASA, issued a report this week concerning the agency's preparedness to deal with near-Earth objects that may prove hazardous to our continued survival as a planet. Mr. Martin is not pleased. However, the U.S. Air Force may be able to assist in this endeavor.

Beautiful and deadly; this is a close-up look at some of the most contagious and lethal pathogens known to humanity.

Speaking of threats to humanity, chemists at North Carolina State University have discovered a method that will cause liquid metal to be manipulated into specific forms. Their work bears a not insignificant resemblance to the T-1000.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Here's a reinvigorated martial art that would be great to see more of: longsword fighting.

They are Batman...all 542 of them.

Nathan Yau of Flowing Data has taken 21 pop songs and distilled each of them down to minimalist graphs and mathematical expressions. The results are both impressive and amusing.

It's no secret that people sometimes go to great lengths to spoil their beloved pets, but sometimes those efforts yield amazing results. Meet artist Ben Dror. He developed this 'car' for his pet fighting fish Jose.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!

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