The makers of Tron 2 are raising the bar for nerdgasmic marketing events. Check out the video in the “Flynn Lives Meet-up” post for proof. I think the line “I’ve been waiting since I was 12 to play Space Paranoids and there it was” says it all. These guys know their target demographic like the back of their hand.

At 4pm EST today, tickets are being released through the Flynn Lives site for some kind of secretive IMAX pre-screening events worldwide. Nerds in the know will be on that.

Google went and did something very clever here. They woke up one day and realised that they are the owners of a massive social network. It took them so long to see it because it was all over the place. They had a way for users to send messages to each other called Gmail. The had a place to upload your photos to called Picasa, and a little thing for videos called YouTube. They had a homepage and chat. Everything that people use in Facebook. The difference was that you log into Facebook and it’s all there. It’s all part of the same website. It isn’t lots of services scattered across the internet. Google Buzz brings it all together in a nice little social networky kind of way.

Remember FriendFeed? It’s like Twitter only better. They were never as big as Twitter but they offered features that you sometimes forget Twitter is missing. It’s a micro-blog just like Twitter, but you aren’t limited to 140 characters. Yes I understand that the whole web 2.0 thing makes limiting yourself a cool thing. Almost a bunch of internet hippy crap. There are so many things I’ve wanted to say on Twitter but haven’t been able to break it down to 140 characters. There are those out there who would say “You know, if you can’t say it in 140 characters then it isn’t worth saying.”. Get lost. What if I use some really intelligent big words? What if I want to say something very complicated? I’ve always preferred the opportunity that FriendFeed provides. Continue Reading…

This article was written by a Simply Syndicated fan, Shane aka “token bg” on our forums.

While you may regard this as hyperbolic it is said by some that the most high pressured job in England, with the obvious exception of Prime Minister, is the manager of the England soccer team. Given recent news headlines it seems we can add the position of England soccer captain to the list. For those who aren’t aware, here is the background to what I am referring.

Later this summer, England will compete in The World Cup. As always, England are seen as one of the competition’s potential winners. For a change, this belief is not unfounded. England’s performances over the past two years have been generally impressive and they can be rightly considered amongst seven or eight countries with a realistic chance of victory come early July.

But there’s a potential spanner in the works. Last Friday (29th January) it was revealed that the England captain had cheated on his wife with the ex-girlfriend of Wayne Bridge. Bridge used to be a team-mate of Terry’s at club level and is a current colleague of his in the England team. This has caused a media furore, with many in the media, as well as England fans branding Terry a disgrace and demanding that he have the captaincy of England taken away from him. The reasoning for this is that as captain of England, Terry is seen as an ambassador for the game of soccer and a role model for young children. As he has fallen short of these duties he must be punished. Continue Reading…

It sounds like something from a Dan Brown novel: a noted Harvard symbologist receives a strange parcel in the mail, a box filled with random and unusual artifacts from a lost and ancient civilization. Using his unsurpassed deduction skills, he must piece together the puzzle to unlock a mystery that could change the course of human history.

Yeah, it’s just like that, if you replace “noted Harvard symbologist” with “basement-dwelling podcaster,” replace “random and unusual artifacts” with “weird stuff” and replace “a lost and ancient civilization” with “New Brunswick, Canada.” Actually, you can leave that last one.

A few days ago, I was contacted by Simply Syndicated listener and fellow Canadian Steven Cogswell, who asked if I’d like his castoff VHS collection. I have mentioned my love for cheap old tapes on Starbase 66 before, so Cogs decided to pass along his science fiction films. “Sure,” I told him, and a few days later, the mailman brought me a couple of boxes of movies. And what a treat … I’ll be discussing the films on the show soon, so we’ll leave that for now.

What caught my attention, though, were the other items Cogs packed in the boxes. These include:

• … a magnifying glass
• … a 1997 CPU from Silicon Graphics
• … a Chromatography and Filtration post-it note set
• … a little purple fuzzball souvenir from National Chemistry Week
• … a beanie from the University of New Brunswick
• … a CD of the Journal of Experimental Biology archives
• …  a gold medallion from the video game Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls
• … and a package of something called Electron Gun Filaments.

I have been trying to figure these things out for a few days now, and I’m stumped. I’m no symbologist, so this kind of thing is beyond me. I’m still trying to understand how fax machines work, for pete’s sake. Superior deduction skills? If I remember where I parked at Walmart I consider it a good day.

The best I can piece together is that I have to go to the University of New Brunswick and use the magnifying glass to look for clues relating to chemistry, biology and fantasy role-playing games. In true Dan Brown style, I suppose I have only 24 hours to do this. And, in true Dan Brown style, there’s a weird science factor at play here with these electron filament thingies. Maybe I’m supposed to prevent oblivion by bringing these gun parts to some place where they’re building a mega laser, or some kind of top-secret super-fast hockey puck. In New Brunswick. I know Cogs is some kind of science whiz, with a sciencey job, so maybe he’s part of all this.

I could really use your help on this, puzzle solvers.

Kennedy, Starbase 66

This seem to be getting worse in the news game these days. It’s generally accepted that everything you see on a television screen is in some way fiction, even the part that’s supposed to look like it’s news. The more informed amongst us get our news from the internet. Yet over the last few weeks I’ve noticed things getting worse there too. Perhaps it’s just a symptom of subscribing to too many RSS feeds.

Apple news is the worst offender. There are too many rumours to deal with and that only leads to news stories that have headlines that end with question marks. They tell us what anonymous sources say and we’re supposed to accept this. Generally the more popular sites don’t go for stuff like that, Engadget for example are generally a reliable source of technology news. Yet more and more I’m seeing sites that just copy them, or tell a story and then end with “according to Engadget”. That sucks. I’ve already read Engadget and I didn’t need another site to tell it to me again.

I’m told that news publishing on the internet is all about being first. Personally I see that as a complete waste of time and effort. You might be the first to break a story by a couple of minutes but that doesn’t means anything to me. I read the news sites that I read and if they have the story that I’m interested in then it doesn’t matter if they had it five minutes later than any other site. I’m not sat at my computer doing nothing but refreshing Google Reader waiting for something to come up. In other words I won’t even know who got the story first.

I’m also starting to see sites breaking single stories up in to several stories in a clear attempt to get visitors to their site. For example a couple of days ago Apple put out a section of iTunes dedicated to the best selling items of 2009. It was full of media of each type that the iTunes store sells, movies, podcasts, TV shows, apps etc. You would have thought that at best that’s one news story. No. Macworld UK managed to split that into four different posts. It took one post to tell me that iTunes have posted the best selling movies of 2009, another to tell me that they’ve posted the best selling TV shows of 2009 and so on. Surely that’s just taking the piss. I managed to tell you about it in a sentence, not four news stories. I find this type of news reporting extremely patronising. All I really needed to know about that was that there’s a best of 2009 section in iTunes. If I want to know what’s in it I’ll go to iTunes and take a look. When I’m there I’ll see that it’s split in to four different sections for the different types of media that the store sells. What a waste of Macworld’s time. I’d really expect better from them. Perhaps they’re just fed up of posting rumours and questions.

The people who make the news on the internet really need to raise their game. It wasn’t too long ago that they were miles ahead of television and print news who are well know for just publishing anything that shows up on their news wire without any fact checking. Publish as quickly as you can and then take back the mistakes later may be good enough for television and newspapers but it didn’t used to be good enough for big name news blogs. If they go that way too exactly where are we supposed to get any form of reliable news.

Start your conspiracy theories now.

Sometime in the last three-hundred years there was a brief period between the European discovery of North America, and the European rape of said continent, when the natives and the colonists actually co-existed peacefully. The tales of the first Thanksgiving are undoubtedly apocryphal and exaggerated with time, but the spirit of the holiday does not depend on historical fact. This is one of the few holidays in the US that is not overly tainted by commercialism, or religious dogma. You can wish anyone a happy Thanksgiving without having to qualify, or tap dance, or think of the current politically correct phraseology. Thanksgiving is simply a day when family and friends gather to take stock of what is good in their lives and rejoice together. And in the spirit of the day I’d like to express my thanks to all of you, the Simply Syndicated family, for all the wonderful things you have done for me this year. Rich, without your vision and drive we would not have had the opportunity to forge the bonds of friendship that we kiddingly call imaginary, but as is continually proven at the various meet-up, are anything but. Allison, you are the heart and conscience of our rag-tag family, and your kindness and unconditional love for all your ‘children’(even though some of us are just a wee bit older than you) have created an atmosphere of acceptance unlike any place on Earth or cyberspace. I want to thank everyone on the forums for your humor, and support, and abuse, and incredible knowledge and wisdom. Like any family we’ve had our squabbles and tiffs, but only very rarely do they end with our numbers declining. You guys and gals are my brothers and sisters; I start every day with a good morning to and from you, and end it with many a ‘good night, Admiral’. I love all of you. And finally to my beloved cohosts. Karen, you are an incredibly warm, knowledgeable, and truly funny person who bravely put your trust in me by stepping into the spotlight with us despite many good reasons to stay in the shadows. I never take that for granted, and it is one of my greatest joys to hear your voice every week. Kennedy, you’re OK for a Canadian. I keed! You are my brother from another mother, and I couldn’t ask for a better foil on the Starbase. Though we have yet to meet in person I feel like I’ve known you my whole life, and your sense of humor and professionalism, not to mention your ability to drag us back on track when we drift too far off course makes each show a joy to do. I never, for even a nanosecond, think that Starbase 66 is anything other than a group effort, and without Karen and Kennedy I’d just be some goob blathering into a microphone. I applaud you both, and look forward to a great second year.

And for those of you outside the US, even though you may not have an official day of thanksgiving, I hope that you are able to take stock of your blessings and appreciate those around you from time to time.

Live long and prosper, my friends, and may the Force be with you.

Love,
Marius

A strange, spooky thing just happened. I’ve spent most of the day at my mothers’s house, cleaning their carpets and rugs (you want to be popular? Buy a $500 steam cleaner and watch what happens). And there was a ghost.

Their house is about 175 years old. Over its nearly two centuries, it has been a girls’ school (which was also a sweatshop, from what we’ve learned), an asylum, apartments, a law office, a rooming house and more, until it was beautifully restored in the 1970s. It even has a name, engraved on a brass plate: Rush House. It’s a landmark, a gorgeous piece of Second Empire architecture, and one of my favourite buildings in the city.

There’s a ghost in it. We’ve heard stories for years, and my mothers have noticed odd things here and there. I never really took it seriously, though … until today. Continue Reading…

My man Mediasaurus Rex turned me on to a special thing via the Nerd Hurdles Forums this morning.

I’m a lapsed Star Wars fan so I haven’t been hanging our at starwars.com very much. Not since May 19th, 1999. Since then I’ve pretty much avoided the place like the plague.

And a good thing too! The place is infested with zombies! Yes, it’s Zombie Week at that already wretched hive of scum and villianY. Artists have submitted their Star Wars/Zombie poster mash-ups. Some are truly inspired and some less so but all are fun.

And a gentle reminder:

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to… BRAINS!

~ Jakob (Co-host, Nerd Hurdles)

Those of you playing along at home know we’ve been running a bit of a contest on Starbase 66. Over the previous two shows (Forum Threads and Remakes), and during the one that airs next (Worst Facial Hair in Science Fiction), we’ve been weaving lies in and out of our conversation. Terri, Gus and I are having a lot of fun with it, making sure these episodes of the International Star Wars and Science Fiction Podcast make you think a little more than usual.

Lying is a tricky business. We all do it. We do it to get out of trouble (“It was like that when I got here”), and we do it to protect other people’s feelings (“You’re an excellent singer!”) In fact, there are times when honesty is considered a character flaw (“I asked him what he thought and he actually told me!”)

I am a big fan of bullshit. It’s a Canadian storytelling tradition, the spinning of tall tales. In fact, we are taught how to lie in the eight grade (when we’re about 13). It’s a component of education called Tall Tales in Modern Society, in which we are encourage to concoct a yarn that straddles the line between Not Possible and So Weird It Might Be True. This extends into our daily lives. Even acting can be considered a form of lying, as was pointed out in the excellent Galaxy Quest episode of The Definitive Word.

The next episode of Starbase 66, episode 110, will be the last instalment in our Lies contest, but I may still continue telling tall tales as the show goes on. I just won’t announce it. You downloads your podcast, you takes your chances.

Anyway, take a listen to the three Lies episodes, and make a list of the lies you think we’ve told you. Send them to us at starbase66@simplysyndicated.com. We’ll figure out who got the most right, and that’s our winner. In case of a tie, we’ll draw a name at random. The winner will receive a signed Starbase 66 poster (at left), suitable for framing.

Isn’t that a work of art? I spent almost a month on the design.

If you’re going to try lying more, please remember the eternal words of Keith Richards: “It’s a fine line between clever and stupid.”

– Kennedy

First off, Mandi, Igor and I want to say “hullo” and express how happy we are to have been invited to join the Simply Syndicated federation of podcasts. If you’re a veteran Hurdler, please subscribe to the new feed on iTunes which you’ll conveniently find on our show page.

But if you’re new to Nerd Hurdles due to our sudden appearance on your Simply Syndicated feed (“Why is my iTunes downloading something called… Nerd Hurdles?…”), we hope it’s a pleasant surprise and not a rude awakening. Every week we discuss geeky things and why they might just been too damn nerdy to be enjoyed by the general population (and in some cases, even by nerds). Sometimes we defend these fandoms (David Lynch films), sometimes we trash them (Transformers). Mostly we drift off-topic. A highly unusual thing for a podcast on SimSyn, I know, but please bear with us.

But we don’t exclusively tackle entirely nerdy subjects. For instance episode 31 was on that most sacred of all normie (see the Geektionary) events: weddings. Though weddings are often (always) lame, they’re not geeky in the standard sense of the word. Yet at the same time they often reveal the nerdiest aspects of the coolie-wooliest of the population. From the dreaded “wedding shuffle” to an OCD attention to chair covers, there’s no bigger nerd out there than a bridezilla in full-on magic princess of planning  mode. The photo-blog Wedinator does an excellent job of highlighting all aspects of cringe-worthy, nuptial insanity. I wish we’d known abou that site when we’d recorded the episode. I also would have had soemthing to say about this picture from the People of Walmart photo-blog.

Our regular stock and trade though is classically geeky topics such as robots, wizards and aliens. Speaking of the latter, if you listened to our first official episode here on Simply syndicated, ”Little Green Men”, you’ll remember we mentioned a few videos. One was the most terrifying ten minutes in any movie at any time. Ever. Period. The other was a prank involving roommates and small greys. Enjoy.

Hungry for more Hurdles? Might we interest you in our spectacular 31 episode backlog available on our original feed? And feel free to browse our website (nerdhurdles.com) of exotic curiosities from times long ago and galaxies far away (including our blog and a forum).

~ Jakob (Co-Host, Nerd Hurdles)