Michael Jackson emerges as a clear favorite when it comes to the art of music and machinima. These videos have been scientifically ranked against the gold standard of all machinima videos, Spiffworld and attempt to hold true in one way or another to the original Michael Jackson videos. Without further ado we present the Top 10 Michael Jackson Machinima videos.
Top spot: a brilliant World of Warcraft parody of Billie Jean.
Last week I was lucky enough to score a press pass to Battlestar Galactica: Cyborgs on the Horizon at the World's Science Festival. The guests of the night included two of the stars of Battlestar Galactica, Mary McDonnell, who played President Laura Roslin, and Michael Hogan, aka Colonel Saul Tigh. Also included on the panel were Nick Bostrom, co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, evolutionary robotics wizard Hod Lipson, and Kevin Warwick, a professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in England whose many accomplishments include self-experimentation which earned him the title, "World's First Cyborg." The evening was hosted by actress, comedian and Deep Star Nine star Faith Salie.
By Joanna
Rather than working I was combing through the fabulous tweets we get on twitter. Sciencegoddess reminded me how much I love Mary Roach, author of the beloved Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Spook, Science Tackles the Afterlife and Bonk,The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, which I have yet to read. Sciencegoddess will be sharing the interview she did with Mary. Stay tuned.
Happy reading!
photo by: mossaiq
By Joanna
My new love of the week, Google Maps Mania, has provided me with more Swine Flu mashups: Swine Flu Tweets map. Now we can get amusing, hysterical, and odd observations on this latest "threat to humanity" Go check it out.
By Joanna
Nerdabout would like to introduce part 1 of our 6 billion part series, Better Know a Blogger. Kevin, whose blog Rumproast won the 2008 Weblog Best Small Blog award, reveals what makes a blog not suck. (Dark footage intentional as a half hearted attempt to conceal identities. A couple pints of beer remedied that.)
Rule # 1: No Expectations
Rule # 2: Don't Tell Your Friends
Rule # 1 & 2 from Noah Sussman on Vimeo.
Google Maps Mania has a bunch of different mashups from users chronicling the swine flu's route across the world.
H1N1 Swine Flu Outbreak Part 1 was created over the weekend by a guy named Niman. You can also check out his Swine Flu Outbreak Timeline, recently updated.
View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map
This map looks intense. It's also a collaborative effort--users can add pending approval from the map maker.
View 2009 Swine Flu (H1N1) Outbreak Map in a larger map
By John Son
So when I wasn't leveling my night elf warrior Muchmuck on WoW (the colossal time suck recently introduced into my life by Joanna, thank you), I'd say the nerdiest moment of my week* was participating in the latest meme raging through Facebook. Called "Album Cover" it's a delightful mashup incorporating Wikipedia, Flickr, randomness, and the most rudimentary of photo-editing software skills (I used the free program Photoscape). Now I know it probably won't reach the epic memeness of "25 Things" since it requires a little work and creativity and fails to give you a reason to talk about yourself, but for certain nerdy types who've spent untold hours gazing at the brilliant serendipity of their favorite album/cd covers, it's a ridiculously fun way to connect with your inner Peter Saville while tapping into that bliss of discovering the best album ever. Above are 5 examples of the next great album you'll never hear.
To create your own Best Album Ever, just follow these 5 easy steps:
1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to Quotations Page and select "random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3. The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
5 - Post it to FB with this text in the "caption" or "comment" and TAG the friends you want to join in.
*I actually had two nerdiest moments of the week, the second being a meetup with my beloved Nerdabouters at the International Bar.
Heather Classen recently wrote us about the geek scene in Boston, and we agreed that the world needed to hear more. So voila! Please welcome our Boston Correspondent Heather Classen.
What's going on in your city? Write us here and be featured on our site.
Hearing about NerdAbout via a Facebook link, I saw that Nerdabout covers Austin TX, Portland OR, and NYC ... no Boston. what up? Boston is the central nerd hatchery as far as I'm concerned... the nerd "Hub", if you will. You can't close your eyes and toss your iPhone without hitting another adventurous knowledge loving brainiac... and here's how I know.
Looking to meet new people during the summer of 2007 I started wading into the Meetup waters, going to lunches, walks, and whatnot. Met great people and had a nice time, but the existing meetup groups weren't doing the sorts of events I wanted to. There was a Michael Palin book signing in Harvard Square that I wanted to go to and I couldn't get any of my regular crew to come along. So I took a chance, opened up Nerd Fun Boston, and posted it. No one came. It was just me and my red meetup sign. But, figuring there weren't many people signed up in my group by the time I ran my first event I gave it another shot. Harvard's Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has an open house night each month, lecture, telescopes, so I posted it. And they came. There's been no turning back.
As I write this there's 1429 members in my group.
My premise for Nerd Fun was to gather life-long learners together. I ran a bunch of events, and then with the help of superstar assistant organizers (i.e. T.J.) the group gathered steam, and people. Each event we attended recruited more and more members. We even started recruiting people who run the events that we attend. NerdFun Boston is a fantastic group of people from all walks of life. Younger people, older people, single, married, straight, gay, local, visiting, foreign, history geeks, science geeks, astronomy geeks, art geeks, geek geeks, everyone. It's fantastic.
Things that surprised me about the group:
1. history nerds.
I had no idea there were so many history nerds, I thought everyone would be all about semiconductors and bio-pharm in line with Boston's biggest industries. Our most prolific organizer, T.J. , started attending Boston By Foot Walking Tours and like the pied piper of nerds, T.J. collected a gaggle of history geeks, including the Boston by Foot tourguides themselves. But, I realized, it's inevitable in a city with Boston's past that curious people are going to want to spend time learning the history that's all around us here. Automatic.
2. transient nerds.
We're getting lots of members who are here in Boston/Cambridge temporarily, for school and work. It's perfect for them to attach onto a good group of active curious people and see and learn what there is to be seen here. Scientists and lawyers from Europe as visiting Harvard and MIT students, business travellers from Montreal in town for the weekend, students testing the grad school waters before they commit, again, I'm always surprised by who finds us.
3. my nerds are hooking up.
(Myself included.) Having this completely low pressure way of meeting other local brainiacs has really made dating easy. It's like being back in college without all the classwork and tuition. Many of us are working stiffs that, until now, hadn't had that "birds of a feather" feeling of community since our university days.
Our Events:
My favorite recurring event is the monthly Smithsonian Observatory Public Viewing Night, which involves an always interesting lecture followed by stargazing through the telescopes on their Cambridge rooftop. The CfA also has the occassional movie night (i.e. Destination Moon—see below.)
Photo by Aram Comjean
We attend talks and exhibits at the Harvard Museum of Natural History , the Museum of Science , the Museum of Fine Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Northeastern University Marine Science Center, the Boston Public Library ,MIT Museum, Boston Duck Tours, movies like Coolidge Corner's Science on Screen series, John Quincy Adams home, cemetery tours, Paul Revere House, the Old South Meeting House and other Freedom Trail locales. The Longfellow House, Lexington and Concord's historical sites, Science in the News Seminar Series from Harvard's Medical School . yada yada yada. The list of events is endless. And our memberlist grows constantly as word gets out.
I'm thrilled at the direction this meetup group has taken, I had no idea that there would be so many really great, funny, intelligent, kind, good hearted, fun, adcventurous people out there looking to do the same sorts of nerd-tastic events that I like doing.
But, then again, this is Boston.
Join:
If you'd like to join, please connect with us at meetup alliance to collect similar groups across the US, please join the fun.
—Heather Classen
It takes something like the 56th Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States to make you realize the degree to which we take technology for granted on a daily basis. In that spirit, here is a roundup of the Top 10 Most Important Forms of Technology Used During the 56th Presidential Inauguration.
I spent the night of January 19th and morning of January 20th curled in the fetal position in the backseat of a white Dodge Caliber rental car in the dingy underground parking garage of the Skyline Hotel on 10th and I in Washington DC.
I didn’t plan on sleeping in the car, but when road closures made getting to my friend Jaideep’s apartment impossible, I did what I usually do when I don’t know what to do; I improvised. The next 24 hours would follow the same theme.
Please wait while our tweets load…
Recent Comments