The Great Geek Manual

Cory Doctorow has begun podcasting Bruce Sterling’s 1992 book, The Hacker Crackdown, which recounts some of the event that poularized hacker subculture as well as the events that led to the formation of The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Sterling released the book to the Internet in 1994, and now you can listen to it at Doctorow’s website, Craphound.

It’s a fantastic book, and if you’ve never read it, this is a fantastic opportunity, since the podcast makes the perfect background listening for surfing the web.

Start at Part One
Subscribe to the Podcast feed

Last December, the world’s greatest magazine, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, announced the winners of Competition #72, “Haunted by the Ghostwriter.” Contestants were called upon to write a passage by a notable author as if it had been ghostwritten by another author. The resulting first place winner was Stephen Hawking writing for Dr. Seuss:
“I do not like this wobbly thing, this wriggly ring, this wiggly string. / I do not like it, Albert E., / for now you’re obsolete, you see. / Our world is all Kaluza-Klein / and oozy, foamy, weird spacetime, / where quantum tunnels, funnels, sleds / let apples slide through Newton’s head!”

I had good chortle over the contest entries, and they set me to thinking about other authors who might lend an amusing twist to my own favorite books. I set the idea aside for a later blog entry and promptly forgot all about it. Then, in the weeks leading up to the premiere of Spider-Man 3, it hit me! What if Stan Lee were asked to step in as the writer of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series?

It’s not such a leap, after all. Think about it? Lee and Rowling are two of the most widely recognized people on the planet. Both have produced stunning cultural icons that have garnered them legions of adoring, obsessive fans. Both single-handedly re-invigorated a waning media industry. Both draw many neighsayers who claim their work isn’t altogether original. Both are … errr … mildly … eccentric. Both freaking love alliteration!

So I decided to ask, What would happen if Stan Lee ghostwrote the Harry Potter series?

10. Harry’s man servant, Doby, would be as loyal as ever but with a drier wit and a remarkable proficient with energy weapons.

09. Upon touching rings, George would be able to transform into any animal and Fred would be able to transform into any object. Yeah, it’s from the DC Universe, but since when has Stan been above borrowing superpowers wholesale?

08. Cross-overs, cross-overs, and more cross-overs! While Hagrid is off on his secret mission for Dumbledore, he would invite the Thing to fill in for him. The Chameleon (posing as Mad-Eye Moody) would stand in as the Defense against the Dark Arts professor during Order of the Phoenix. Apocalypse might suddenly decide that it’s necessary to extinguish all Wizards in a three part special featuring the X-Men. Read the rest of this entry » » »

The only downside to shifting from a Livejournal blog to a WordPress blog is that I miss those random, flashy avatar icons. I still compulsively collect the little buggers, though I don’t have anything to do with them any more, and I thought that others might find them useful in the festivities leading up to July’s Pottergasm. So, Here’s an eye full of animated gif for you!

Read the rest of this entry » » »

Wouldn’t it be easier if people can download .torrent files with their web-browser? This is a question BitTorrent novices often the ask. Last year Opera was the first browser to add BitTorrent support, soon followed by BitFox, FireStorm, FoxTorrent, AllPeers, and Wyzo/FireTorrent. Here’s an overview of these applications and extensions that add BitTorrent support to your web-browser.

All the applications listed in this article were previously featured on TorrentFreak. Our friend Niek from mininova wrote a great roundup post at the Mininova blog reviewing all of them, and pointing out some of the pros and cons. The remainder of this article is copied from his post.

Opera

Opera was the first browser to support the Bittorrent protocol. Their BT support is quite solid, but not very advanced and doesn’t support some well-known BT extensions. In short: nice for new users, but not for regular downloaders.

Pros: Nicely integrated, multi-platform.
Cons: No advanced features (missing DHT, peer exchange, encrypted transfers), not open source. Read the rest of this entry » » »

So the Apple iPhone is coming on June 29^th, eh? Exciting. But just in case the whole anticipation thing is becoming a bit too much for you to bear, here’s a small list of things to ponder while you’re waiting.

1. Sunshine is not your friend.

Don’t bother trying to dial from that sunny beach. It’ll be a wash out. Of course you can always turn the screen brightness up full and watch your battery life plummet.

2. Grease is your enemy.

 Get yourself a good cleaning cloth immediately because you’ll need it. How do the the words ‘smear & smudge’ sound? I recommend Calotherm (www.calotherm.co.uk/branded/index.htm).

Read the rest of this entry » » »

This is the first “zero emission” home unveiled in the Watford, in the UK this week, as an example of new environmental housing standards set to take effect in 2016. The house is carbon neutral, very nearly air-tight, and very open in its architecture. It’s so efficient, the designer claims that owners will only need to heat it four weeks out of the year.
Among it’s conservation mechanisms, it includes:
Read the rest of this entry » » »

Is it just me, or as a Harry Potter film premiere approaches, does Slash fic increase exponentially? It doesn’t help matters that he’s playing in Equus, either.

Source: Eneadart Slash Gallery via Perezhilton.com