Category Archives: Soylent Green
How much longer till they give up printing the books?
The updated numbers for Marvel’s The Avengers put it’s weekend box office haul at around $207.3 million, beating the previous number 1 by about $38 million. World wide box office to date is nearing $700 million. This got me thinking. Why does Marvel still print comic books? I know that there is still a small and loyal reader base out there, but I’m sure that somewhere in NYC someone at Marvel, or their owners Disney, are going to ask why they are still bothering. In the month of February 2012 Marvel sold about 220K new titles between five different books with the words “Avengers” in them. That works out to about $880K, or about 1/25th of what the movie made in the US just on midnight shows. If you were to add in all the figures for the other books starring characters from the movie it would of course be higher, but still. Just food for thought. I love reading comics books, but for how much longer
The Death of RIM
It may seem that we like to pile on Research in Motion here at StolenDroids, but we really don’t. OK. Maybe we do a bit but they make it so easy. Regular listeners of our podcast know that there is hardly a week that goes by that we don’t ask the question “What are they thinking?” We’ve even been blamed for being the sole cause of RIM’s troubles. As much as I’d like to believe that we have that much influence, this infographic seems to say otherwise. I guess we’ll just have to try harder to take down companies in the future…
Alan Moore Is Talented
Those of us who are familiar with comic books know that Alan Moore is a great writer. With works including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore is comic book royalty. Sure, he’s like the weird, inbred uncle that the rest of the royal family keeps locked in the tower whenever company comes to visit, but royalty nonetheless. That being said, it’s generally accepted that Moore’s talent levels make his crazy levels something that most people are willing to deal with. The dude is nuts. There are reports that he is describes himself as an anarchist, a practicing warlock, and allegedly worships an ancient Roman snake god. He also wears metallic talons. Yep. Crazy.
Now, I don’t know where this image came from, but I thought that it was too awesome not to share. Moore was apparently on BBC News at some point in history (don’t ask me when though because I was too lazy to look it up) and somebody was able to get this screen capture:
I always knew that the guy was a talented writer, but I’ve never been sure about his wizarding abilities. (How do you really know if somebody is a good wizard in this day and age?) However, I had no idea that he moonlighted as a mall Santa and a Rasputin impersonator. Kudos to him for branching out. It’s good to diversify yourself, especially in this tough economy.
SD#55 Rolling Blackouts
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Stark's computer is still feeling the effects
We have a droid dropping in and out throughout the show. Google is bored with its new toy. We might be a little racist but need feedback to make sure. And I hate Stanley Jaffe.
The Life Of An IT Guy
No, not an ‘it’ guy. I imagine that life has got to be pretty sweet. I mean, you’re the ‘it’ guy. Everyone wants to be you. This is very different from being an IT guy. I-T. As in information technology. As in the guy that people yell at when they think that organizing every file on their computer alphabetically in one folder, usually on the desktop, or what’s left of it, is a good idea.
Most of us here at StolenDroids have all been there. By trade, we’re computer nerds. We’ve done our time in the trenches as the company IT guy. We’ve also all served hard time working a help desk for various large, faceless corporations full of employees who all think that theirs is the most important job in the history of important jobs. Because of this sense of self-importance, they tend to treat the IT guys and help desk monkeys like total idiots, not realizing that without them, that two minute PowerPoint presentation that they need to give on why it’s important to flush the toilet wouldn’t get done on time. But I digress…
Earlier today, Schmidty and I were sharing some of our horror stories about our days helping others. A few of them were pretty brutal while others were just met with facepalms. Here are a few of the favorites that I shared.
This Mr. Stay Puft’s Okay!
Well, that’s something you don’t see every day. Um, yeah. I need a cake like this on my next birthday.
This awesome cake is via Kimmi Page.
How Star Trek Ships Are Wrong part 3
Continuing on from Part 2: The Nacelles
How Maneuvering Will Kill Everyone Aboard
In order to understand this next part of the “USS Enterprise = Deathtrap” equation, it’s important that we understand two major forces in physics; inertial mass and center of mass.
Inertial mass is the mass of an object measured by its resistance to acceleration.
Sounds simple enough right? Everyone has experienced it to some degree. Imagine having to push a Buick out of your driveway; even though it’s on a level surface and it has wheels to reduce friction, it’s still a pain! It’s a pain because of its inertial mass. When people think “mass” they often mistake it for “weight”. In truth, however, it’s much harder to describe what defines “mass” because scientists are still working on that definition themselves. What they do know is that mass isn’t so much about how much something weighs as it is about how much of it is there.
Star Trek Ships Are Wrong part 2
Just in case you came across this page on your own, here’s a handy link to Part 1: The Warp Core. And now we’re onto . . .
The Warp Nacelles
Everytime someone says “nacelle”, I immediately think USS Enterprise. After all, that’s where I first became familiar with the term. The obvious truth is, of course, that “nacelle” as a word has been around much longer and means simply “a streamlined enclosure on an aircraft used to hold passengers or engine that is separate from the fuselage”. Still confused? It’s these things:
Click on it. I dare you.
