http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/12/21/cool-stuff-life-size-cylon-replica/

I ran across this today … and what makes me a geek is when I saw the 7,900.00 price tag, I didn’t say “OMG 7,900 dollars, are they crazy”… I said … “OMG.. OMG … OMG!!!! Where can I get 7,900 dollars… ”

This is the coolest fracking thing I have ever seen in my life… I will own this… oh yes… it will be mine.

I would however, like to state for the record, that the OG model would also be a welcome addition to my home … I would name it Larry.

So awhile back I talked about how the Apple TV hadn’t updated to allow for access to the rentals and what not…

Again, old news (hey this is not a geek news site) , but they did update…. I picked up the update a half hour or so after it was released… so I like to think that I was the first consumer to actually rent a movie on the Apple TV… not likely, but in my geek dreams .. it is true.

So anyway, Apple has gotten some bad press over the last few weeks about the whole thing.. which personally I have to say is CRAP… or as colonel tigh would say crraaaappppp…  I LOVE the apple TV.  To date I gave rented several movies on it.

Some of the bad press included some dude talking about how he rented a movie and started watching it as it was streaming… (According to apple on a high speed connection you can begin watching in as little as 30 seconds. ) and after about an hour he caught up with the download and had to stop watching the movie… ok yeah, that would suck.  But you know what.  Not apple’s fault.  Cancel your cheap ass DSL connection and  get real internet.  We rented a movie…. in HD… began watching it immediately, and never had any lag at all..

Another complaint is the 24 hour thing… once you start watching a movie, you have 24 hours to complete it.. I agree with this one, that is complete crap.. BUT … again, I seriously doubt this had ANYTHING to do with Apple.  I am sure that is part of the agreement that they signed.  However, Steve (cause I know he read’s this blog first thing every morning.. ) please correct that problem and get the agreements ammended…

Another issue that has cropped up is that movies that you rented before the release of up the Apple TV update will not play on the apple Tv..  and yeah that is true.  I experienced that with the copy of “the simpsons” that I rented.  HOWEVER,  Apple is also handling this problem as well, allowing people to re-download the content to be compliant with the new update…

So, all in all, Apple delivers another great product and stands behind it … better then windows Vista anyway …. LOL

It’s old news… but as you know HD-DVD is officially dead.

I am disappointed, not for a really good “geek” esq reason, but becuase Blue Ray sounds stupid… and doesn’t in the least indicate what the heck it does..

The biggest reason, is that I hate SONY… I used to be a big huge fan of Sony, and let’s face it, back in the day Sony really had it going on. Without them, we wouldn’t have portable devices, and lots of other neat little gadgets. But the 80’s are over… and sony turned into a company that installs trojans on your computer when you put their CD’s in your PC (that trojan of course was designed to steal your information and give (sell) to their thrid party advertisers… real nice).

Another reason why it annoys me that they “won” the format wars is one of the reasons why they won. The DRM on BlueRay is much more convoluted then the HD format was… It will be broken of course, but any company that tries to prevent free access aggravates me.

Now, Toshiba has bowed out gracefully and discontinued anything and every thing HD-DVD… and I respect that.. and as a plus HD-DVD players are REALLY cheap… So I will probably buy one, for no other reason then to upscale my standard DVD’s, but for the future… it is all about HD movies from Apple TV….

Sony - BITE me.. I am not buying blue ray… so deal with it…

Awhile back I started getting into podcasts on a regular basis.  I listened to them before, but I never found any that I stayed interested in.  So, now I will give you the list that has finally endured.

All time favorite : [ Galactica Watercooler ]  Three random fans that started their own podcast.  They have no official connection to the BSG franchise, but I think they likely have a larger listener base then RDM’s cast.  Anyway, they like the Big Lebowski too, so how could I fade that… it makes the drive and first part of my Monday’s bearable.

This is the only podcast I listen too for pure enjoyment.  The rest are all tech/geek casts.

1. CNET podcast group- specifically Buzz Out Loud.  A few of the other catch my interest every now and  the, but I listen to BOL every day.

2. [ SlashDot Review ].  It is 15 minutes, and delivers a wide variety of  tech related information gleaned from Slashdo, Digg and reddit.  I like it since it keeps me from having to spend most of the day sorting through all the crap on those sites.  I like Slashdot, but Digg and reddit are hard to read through.  Andy MaCaskey does a great show and is very easy to listen to.

3. TWIT. of course .. any geek who listens to podcasts has likely listened to TWIT at least once if not regularly… great show, great crew, very fun…. although the arguing gets hard to listen to sometimes..

4. Today in iPhone.  This is a new one for me, and I am not sure about it just yet.  I am going to give it a week or so, but the guy who does the show is a bit difficult to listen to, and all the information he has giving in the last couple of shows was dated.  (yes in this business 24 - 48 hours makes it dated.) But I am hopeful since there still are not many (that I have seen) dedicated iPhone shows.

5. Make Magazine Podcast - this is a video cast that people submit and talk about the things they make.. it is pretty cool.  One I watched this week was on making a trebuchet… That’s just awesome.

6. NPR Technology.  Another newbie, but I am an NPR fan, so I think that I will like this one.

7. Pauldotcom Security Weekly.  A great computer security podcast that is really fun to listen too.. plus they do beer reviews while they are talking, and by the end (middle) of the cast they get pretty faded. LOL

8. Hak 5 Video Podcast.  Another great cast that shows various security apps, and occasionally does shows on hacking video controller, guitar hero guitars, etc… Trust your technolust.

9. Linux reality.  A basic linux podcast. interesting… if your into linux.

10. GeekSpeek.  This one is really cool.  These guys are funny, and really in tune with what Geeks want to hear about…

11. Geek News.  Not sure if this one will stick around.  I like it… sort of… He is just wrong a lot.  Kind of frustrating.

So — if you’re going to add any of the above to your podcast list for the day — I strongly suggest that Galactica Watercooler be one of them…

As a geek… I have obviously always wanted to be in space, and the moon has always been, at least for me, the quintessential object that draws that desire.  Humans chased the moon for thousands of years, but when they finally got there, they forgot all about it.  I will grant that forward progress means that you go forward, but the moon is still very very cool.   Tonight it looked more cool then normal, since there was a full lunar eclipse.  That means the earth completely blocks the moon from the sun casting a shadow and darkening it.

I had fun staring at it for awhile tonight… I tried taking a few pictures, but none of them looked good so I snagged the one above from the ABC website… thanks ABC…

Anyway, this is the last time you can see it until 2010.. so check it out.

So I am walking through a parking lot heading into an office, and I saw this ….

I was so excited that I had to go in and find out if the driver had that plate as a reference to the final five cylon, because let’s face it… that would be the coolest plate in the world to have… LOL

Unfortunately the owner had NO idea what BSG was, let alone a cylon, and likely thought that I was the biggest freak on the planet, but it was still a great sighting, and in my dream tonight the plates will be on my super cool flying car that exists only in my dreams…

Last night we celebrated our 15 wedding anniversary … yep 15 years ago this geek moved out of his parents basement, sold off his star wars toys and got hitched…

Since then, I have been trying to reclaim all my star wars toys…

We had the party in our newly finished backyard… grilling, bonfire,  good friends and good food and drink.

Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

The beautiful cake… it was very nice, until the party degenerated into a cake fight at about 2 in the morning… we were sober…. sort of.. LOL

Us cutting the cake… apparently you have to do that at your wedding and any anniversary divisible by five.

My lovely wife , and my sister … respectively.   Behind them is the bar… see the part about the cake fight.. LOL

This is Jen… without Jen, the party would have consisted of alot of beer… and some hot dogs… Thanks to Jen, the party actually had a theme, and people actually had a good time… Of course, Jen is the one that started the cake fight… but that is why we love her.

Here is a really bad picture of the fire… but it was all I had.. and it was starting to die down…

It was a fun night…

When you think of a geek, especially if you are not one, you picture one of two people :

This guy … the scrawny, stiff wind could blow him over, high pitched squeaky voiced guy…

Or this guy … The chubby to overweight, messy hair (usually curly), with a seemingly desperate look in his eyes…

No offense [ Chris Sligh ] … whoever you are.. your picture just happen to come up on a google image search for “chubby geek” … you might want to look into that.

While I understand that stereotypes are stereotypes because there is a measure truth to the idea being garnered, not all geeks have zero sense of style, or a lack of desire to comb their hair. Even with my affinity for geeky looking shirts with computer sayings that no one but me gets, I still like to think that I can get my fashion on.

In the last year or so, being a geek has become cool.  I even saw a kid the other day with a t-shirt on that said “Adorkable”.  When I was a kid, we would never have admitted to being dorky, and would have been crushed to be in that category.  Personally, I have a mixed reaction to this new geek chic movement.  I am glad that geeks are being given some well deserved love, but at the same time, I hate to think that we are in for a swelling of geek “posers”.. people who want to ride the geek train, but don’t really fit the mindset.  Those people will endeavor to fit into the stereotypes (glasses, geeky sayings, etc..) but will miss the point of what it means to be a geek.

So, love the geek, but lose the stereotypes.  Geeks don’t have to look a certain way, or talk through their nose.. they simply need to be consumed with life, and learning.  The topic is not always important, just that it be what you are about.

OK - here is a link to the story [ Star Trek Article ]. I won’t bore you with the mundane details, suffice to say it is a money thing.

Anyway, when I first heard about the latest Star Trek movie, the inner geek in me squealed with joy, but the outer cynic
was saying… are you kidding me?

Then, of course, I started hearing more and more about the movie - firstly that J.J. Abrams was directing. Now, I am generally not a fan of directors. Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas have historically been the only directors that I will go to see a movie for the simple fact that they are directing it. Abrams though did [ Alias ]. Now as far as non-scifi shows go, Alias was the best TV show ever made… Even including scifi .. Alias is easily in the top 5. Abrams also did MI:3. I have always loved the Mission Impossible TV series, and the first MI was fantastic. Then [ Tom Cruise went nuts ], and then they hired John Woo to direct the second movie, and pretty much ruined the whole series for me. To the point that I almost didn’t bother with the third movie. JJ did it though… he won me back, even with Tom Cruise.

Going beyond Abrams another great thing about the new Star Trek movie is the cast they are picking…

Spock will be played by [ Zachary Quinto ] whom we all know and love as Sylar, the evil power stealing hero from Heroes.

Bones will be played by [ Karl Urban ] You would remember him as the assassin in The Bourne Supremacy, Vaako in The Chronicles of Riddick (a grossly underrated scifi movie.) and, of course, Eomer in Lord of the Rings.

Another highlight will be [ Paul Mcgillion ] who is still missed from Stargate Atlantis in his role as Dr. Beckett. I still wished he was playing Scotty though …

I also like the fact that they picked relatively unknown for the role of Kirk. It would have been very easy to get some hugely known “hunk star ala brad pitt” to play Kirk, but this will work much better.

So, now that my cynic, and my geek can meet in perfect harmony and actually be excited for the upcoming Star Trek movie, they go and push it back a whole year….

FRAK!!!

I ran across this article in the NY Times and it made me laugh, and it appealed to my inner geek.

[ Half Of UK Men Would Swap Sex For 50 Inch TV ]

Apparently the brits are into their television. Of course, I have been in London, back in 2002, and from personal experience I can tell you that they have plenty of porn that just gets broadcast over the air… it was quite shocking. Perhaps that is influencing their decision.

Of course the article also points out that only 25% would be willing to give up smoking for a TV… a sad statement. Nicotine is apparently more addictive then sex. Although I would guess that the smokers have been adversely affected in that particular aspect of life, or else I doubt they would think so..

Anyway… enough sex talk, just thought this was an interesting news byte.