Nerdgasm

For your future viewing pleasure (one hopes), here is a list of 18 upcoming fantasy/science fiction shows coming to the silver screen.

And if the list is not enough, check out the cast to the Game of Thrones series:

Software Composes Original Music

From the article:

Emmy was once the world’s most advanced artificially intelligent composer, and because he’d [David Cope] managed to breathe a sort of life into her, he became a modern-day musical Dr. Frankenstein. She produced thousands of scores in the style of classical heavyweights, scores so impressive that classical music scholars failed to identify them as computer-created. Cope attracted praise from musicians and computer scientists, but his creation raised troubling questions: If a machine could write a Mozart sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what was so special about Mozart? And was there really any soul behind the great works, or were Beethoven and his ilk just clever mathematical manipulators of notes?

There are two excerpts from pieces the software composed a short way down the article

All True Bible Stories for Children

From the homepage:

Some say that, as a parent, Beth Christian was less than perfect.
Some say that as a moralist, she left something to be desired.
But everyone agrees that she knew how to take the Bible's advice -- very, very literally

All True Bible Stories for Children is a record of Biblical lessons, passed from Beth Christian to her daughter. Atheists may find them humorous, some Christians may find them confusing, but it is devoutly hoped that all will find enlightenment therein.

From the intro:

Beth was every biographer's dream, a living collection of entertaining childhood reminisence. Like Scheherezade, Beth related story after fascinating story from her youth, never asking for more than dinner and perhaps a movie in return. Over the years that Beth and I maintained our unusual relationship, I learned a great deal about her formative years, and about the woman who made Beth the fascinating, introspective woman she is today -- her mother, Eve.

To Eve, scripture was the end-all and be-all of spiritual guidance, morality, and practical wisdom. Like her mother before her, Eve turned to her Bible whenever she was faced with a dilemma, and she never failed to find a solution in those holy words.

Eve didn't rely on religious leaders or so-called "scholars" for her interpretation of God's truth. She knew that every letter of every syllable of every word in the Bible was put down just as the Lord intended it to be, and that anyone on a first-name basis with the Holy Spirit can feel their true meaning in their heart.

From Genesis 19:30-38 (The Story of Lot's Daughters):

One day, Lot and his two daughters moved out of Zoar to live in the mountains, because he was afraid to live in town.

One night, the older daughter said to the younger one, "Our father is old and there are no men around to put their penises in us. Let's get our father drunk so that we can get him to put his penis in us and make babies grow in our tummies."

. . .

"To God," Beth's mother told her, "children are the most important thing. It doesn't matter how a baby starts growing in a woman's tummy. Having sex when one of the people is drunk is much better than never having a baby grow in a woman at all."

One of those moments...

...where I'm very happy YouTube exists.

The Exquisite Torture

Via Topless Robot

And They're Hungry

Cake Wrecks seems to claim they're babies, but you ever see that movie Ghoulies?

So I don't overwhelm this blog

I collected more videos on my own blog: http://crumpled.com/blog/2010/02/some-of-best-music-videos-ever-part-1.html

Michel Gondry's Video for Around the World

We recently got the work of Michel Gondry from Netflix, and I've been on a music video kick, so I'm going to overwhelm this blog. I'm stuck in the server room doing an epic file transfer.

Daft Punk - Around The World (Michel Gondry)
by doporto

I created a tag called best ever because I think that these are some of the best music videos ever made.

Michel Gondry's Video for Sugar Water

by Cibo Matto.

This video is amazing.

Cibo Matto - SUGAR WATER
by zectarien

I think this was possible because of a propensity to make flip books
You could do a story on one side of the page, and then flip the book over and write another story, or the same story differently, synchronizing events from one side of the page with events on the other side of the page.

Watch this video at least to the mid point to give it a proper chance, then I dare you to stop. (actually, no, keep watching.)

BOOM!

On Bad Astronomy

Face Drawing Robot

It's all tangents, I tells ya!

Mazes and Monsters Redux

Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons - just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

That's right kids, D&D is teh evil. And did you know:

"Some experts have cited the D&D backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes, while others say it just a game."

Really, "some experts"-- that is some lazy-ass reporting. All I can say is [CITATION NEEDED].

Teach the Controversy!

Who Plays the Watchmen?

Comics Alliance thinks up Watchmen based board games!

Helpdesk to the World

I love The Oatmeal, but this comic makes me want to both laugh and cry:

7-Minute Song About the Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

OK Go- This Too Shall Pass

Do you have to be a band geek to enjoy this? Because I really did, but I was a band geek, so my sample is tainted.



(Thanks to Rude Cactus for the link!)

Dust in the Wind

The guys over at Muppet Studios are doing a damned good job keeping themselves relevant.

You Used Me Like a Pipebomb!

I'm not sure why, but this had me nearly crying from laughter.

Baggage

Goddamed FOX News.

In case you can't make it out, the sign in question reads, "Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!" This appears in the latest Captain America comic. #602.

Seems to me, I've seen a sign like this in real life. Oh, that's right, a similar one appeared at a Tea Bagging rally last year.

Seriously, comics can't make this Tea Bagging movement look bad, the fact that it holds up Sarah Palin as an example does that.

Ghost In The Sealab

A thing of beauty:

The Classics

Star Trek: Online!

The whole comic.

The wonderfully verbose Eric Burns-White, he of Websnark, posted a review of Star Trek Online, including screen caps, while beta testing a few weeks ago. Today he wrote about how the game should run to continue to be as great as it, apparently, is.

I'm not a MMORPG person, but the trekkie in in me really want to be.

Boomdeyada!

OK, for geek points, and without looking stuff up, who do you recognize from this video?

The Last Airbender Teaser

Looks really cool, doesn't it.

Of course I don't think anyone's problems with Shyamalan's movies has been the art direction or cinematography. The hard part with this will be condensing the 20 half-hour episodes of Book One: Water into two hours worth of movies. How many of you think we'll be getting at least one training montage?

Via Topless Robot

Oh, NO! NOOOOOOO!

[Last spring] Warner Brothers had picked up the rights to Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos series of sci-fi books. It looks like they've found their director - Scott Derrickson of The Day the Earth Stood Still most recently.

You bet your ass that's my emphasis.

The short article.

Why couldn't it have been an eight to twelve hour miniseries on HBO covering all the books?

Hourly Comics Up!

The forum for many of yesterday's hourly comics is here.

The picture comes from one of my favorites, so far.

Vinyl Fantasy 7

Mashups of various artists and the original music of Final Fantasy 7.

Vinyl Fantasy 7
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/02/vinyl-fantasy/ (what it is)
http://teamteamwork.bandcamp.com/album/vinyl-fantasy-7 (where to “buy” it)

Pee Wee is Back! Sorta...

Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman

SF vs WBC

It was at the protest in front of Twitter last Friday. Also, SF showed up for the protest at Fiddler on the Roof, but WBC didn't.

What Was J.D. Salinger Writing?

Could it have been...

From Sunday's Sheldon.