Geeking Out

Many a game designer has left messages etched permanently in the data of our games, buried deep within the code and not intended to be seen by us.

Caleb Cole loves used clothing. His mom used to take him to thrift shops and yard sales long before Brooklyn hipsters and Macklemore made it cool. Over the years he's come across some amazing vintage goods and always wondered about the original owners. Who were they? What did their lives look like?

You can think of it as an ATM for Bitcoins. For a few glorious days this past weekend, on a conference center floor in San Jose, California, the Robocoin machine dished out thousands of dollars in exchange for Bitcoins, the world's most popular digital currency. The two brothers who built the thing -- Mark and John Russell, of Las Vegas -- are still trying to figure out what to do with this contraption. But one thing's certain: They don't want to operate it on their own. Mark Russell isn't even sure if it's legal.

By all rights, Star Trek Into Darkness should be a really good movie. The acting is superb. The core cast established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in 2009, and they've only gotten better. Unfortunately, Into Darkness is wrestling with way, way too much story for one movie.

Obama has a chance to clear up four major areas of ambiguity about the seemingly endless war on terrorism in his forthcoming speech. We'll see.

The BMW Guggenheim Lab released today their full list of urban trends gleaned from almost six months' worth of workshops held in Mumbai, Berlin, and New York City.

The new Phorus speaker system provides multi-room wireless audio streaming over Wi-Fi. It uses the new Android-based Play-Fi lossless streaming protocol.

An anonymous reader writes "I run a small software consulting company who outsources most of its work to contractors. I market myself as being able to handle any technical project, but only really take the fun ones, then shop it around to developers who are interested. I write excellent product specs, provide bug tracking & source control and in general am a programming project manager with empathy for developers. I don't ask them to work weekends and I provide detailed, reproducible bug reports and I pay on time. The only 'rule' (if you can call it that) is: I do not pay for bugs. Developers can make more work for themselves by causing bugs, and with the specifications I write there is no excuse for not testing their code. Developers are always fine with it until we get toward the end of a project and the customer is complaining about bugs. Then all of a sudden I am asking my contractors to work for 'free' and they can make more money elsewhere. Ugh. Every project ends up being a battle, so, I think the solution is to finally hire someone full-time and pay for everything (bugs or not) and just keep them busy. But how can I make that transition? The guy I'd need to hire would have to know a lot of languages and be proficient in all of them. Plus, I can't afford to pay someone $100k/year right now. Ideas?" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

kkleiner writes "A startup called Matternet is building a network of quadcopter drones to deliver vital goods to remote areas and emergency supplies to disaster-stricken areas. The installation of solar-powered fueling station and an operating system to allow for communications with local aviation authorities will allow the network to be available around the clock and in the farthest reaches of the world. 'Matternet’s drone network has three key components. First, the drones—custom-built autonomous electric quadcopters with GPS and sensors, capable of carrying a few kilos up to 10 kilometers (and more as the tech advances). Next, the firm will set up a network of solar-powered charging stations where drones autonomously drop off dead batteries and pick up charged ones. A drone battery that can travel 10 km need not limit the drone itself to 10 km — rather, these drones can theoretically travel the whole network by swapping out batteries. The final component will be an operating system to orchestrate the drone web, share information with aviation authorities, and fly missions 24/7/365.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After the jump check out a list of which which comics, graphic novels, toys and other pop-culture merchandise will arrive at your local comic shop via Diamond Comics Distributors.   Please check with your retailer for availability. Read more »