Geeking Out

July 1st is coming up fast, and those of you out there that still rely on Google Reader are running out of time to find a new RSS reader. A lot of people have already jumped on the Feedly bandwagon, myself included, but it’s not the only game in town. Besides the readers that already exist, Digg is coming out with their own RSS reader, and it will be public for everyone by June 26th. Digg outlined some details of their reader offering and announced the June 26th date on their blog yesterday. They say they will be focusing on the group most put out by the shutdown of Google Reader — power users. Digg calls them, “the people who depend on the availability, stability, and speed of Reader every day.” To Digg’s benefit, the 18,000 power users they signed up to give them feedback on their own reader evidently came through. The major points they said the Digg Reader should hit are to, “Make it fast. Keep it simple. Let me import my feeds and folders from Google Reader.” Those may seem obvious, but as someone who has been trying out a number of Google Reader alternatives, it’s clearly not obvious to everyone. Digg won’t settle for the obvious though. They have plans for their reader over the next six months. Those plans include an Android app, faster performance, third-party integration for fans of things like Evernote, better sorting tools, and managing user feedback. The June 26th release date is cutting it a little close to the death of Google Reader, and I’d have to assume that by then most people will have found an alternative they’re happy with. Digg Reader will have to be pretty solid out of the gate to win people over enough to bother migrating their feeds and getting used to another new user experience. The fact that they’re touting this a “freemium” product also has me a little wary, and not just because “freemium” is a stupid neologism. They say all the features offered at launch will remain free. So will upcoming features to be named later, but with a number of solid and free alternatives out there, Digg is really going to have to impress the power users they’re courting if they expect us to shell out any cash. (via Digg, image via Jake Maheu) Meanwhile in related links Alas, poor Google Reader! I knew him, Horatio Don’t switch to FeedDemon, because it’s dying too Google wants Google+ to be your Reader alternative

In every game, Ryu’s Ultra Fireball takes longer and longer. Ain’t nobody got time for that! [ADHD]

After promising he wouldn’t be a jerk about Community‘s fourth season, the comedy’s once and future showrunner Dan Harmon spoke out on his Harmontown podcast about what he thought of the Harmon-less season. Spoiler alert: He wasn’t too happy with it, and wasn’t afraid to say it with some backhanded and profane responses. He’s since apologized, but the damage’s already been done. Mostly, Harmon expressed regret that the replacement showrunners David Guarascio and Moses Port tried and, in his opinion, failed to follow his lead. “It’s obviously not somebody doing what they do and trying very hard to make people happy,” he said. “It is very much like an impression, and an unflattering one. It’s just 13 episodes of ‘Oh, I’m Dan Harmon! Huh huuh! Die Hard! Duh huh huh huh!’” “They could have just done a sitcom set at a community college,” he said, and while he acknowledged that fans would have been disappointed, he thought that “then, five episodes later, regular people would have been like, ‘Oh, this is a pleasant little show set at a community college.’” One of Harmon’s major regrets was the introduction of Jeff’s dad, who he had always wanted to be played by Bill Murray. He explained that while watching the fourth season, he left Murray an awkward voicemail asking him to be on the show. He followed this up with a bizarre rape metaphor we won’t reproduce here, but sufficed to say it was pretty bad. Though he was negative about the replacement showrunners, he saved his hardest shots for the company that fired and rehired him. “Writers fighting other writers is the fucking American dream in the eyes of Sony. That is what they want. They want creative people rewriting each other. They want creative people replacing each other. They want us interchangeable.” He’s since apologized, which you can read in full here, but it pretty much boils down to him saying, “You know what, guys? This one’s on me. My bad.” (Splitsider via The AV Club, Dan Harmon Poops, image via Rex Hammock) Meanwhile in related links Harmon initially promised to not be a jerk We were real excited when he confirmed his return to the show Sony asked Harmon to return

AT&T is installing 25 solar-powered gadget charging station in the streets of New York. It’s partly billed as a response to the power outages of the Sandy storm, though at this stage the project is more of a demo than anything else. The project stems from the work of Pensa, a product design firm that previously produced devices as diverse as an avocado slicer and a digital version of the binoculars used atop tall tourist attractions. It’s been working on Street Charge, the idea of solar panel chargers in public places. After initial testing with umbrellas, the designers decided the simplest solution was a self-contained pole complete with solar panels at the top and a waist-high table for connecting gadgets for charging without needing to hold on to them. The poles also provide lighting so they can be used at nighttime (though that might be a beacon for crime in rougher neighborhoods.) AT&T has now paid for 25 of the poles to be installed around the city. They can each charge up to six devices through standard USB ports. There’ll also be three charging plugs (micro-USB, Apple 30 pin and Apple Lightning) for people without cables handy. The pole house a 168-watt-hour rechargeable battery, meaning it can provide power for a long time even during cloudy periods and night time. Pensa says charging time should be roughly the same as with a standard mains power supply, so you should be able to get your gadget up and running without having to wait around for too long. Much of the media coverage of the project has been based on the fact that many people in the New York/New Jersey area were without power for extended periods last fall and soon came to find they lost communications as mobile device batteries died. However, the Street Charge devices were already in development before the storm hit. The charging points will only be in place for 90 days as a temporary installation. In the long run Pensa hopes to bring permanent installations to multiple cities, assuming either the city government or a sponsor such as AT&T is willing to pick up the tab. One possibility is that the poles could be an enhancement to, or replacement for, the poles used for street signs. It’s also been suggested the poles could act as Wi-Fi hotspots.

In need of new dungeon crawler time sink? Don’t like spending money? Then GOG.com has something to scratch your itch. From now until Thursday, you can download the action-RPG Torchlight for free. The best part about this is that there’s absolutely no catch — all you have to do is sign up for a free account on GOG.com. There’s no DRM to keep you from playing, either. That’s because the whole point of the download is to promote the site’s 2013 #noDRM Summer Sale. DRM is an especially hot topic now, particularly due to the Xbox One’s use of it. This has become a primary source of contention between consumers and game publishers.  ”We’re very glad to see that the issue of restrictive digital rights management has become an item of public debate, and we want to make sure that our #NoDRM stance is clear,” GOG said. Just like in Torchlight itself, the sale has  plenty of other loot for deal hunters. There’ll be new deals every day, discounting games up to 85%.  The sale kicks off today, with two deals: All 10 of the Dungeons & Dragons titles on the site — including the beloved Baldur’s Gate games — are on sale as a package for $21, down from $105. The two games in the Alan Wake franchise are also bundled together for 90% off, marking them down from $44 to $4. While PC folks are highly anticipating the equally cheap Steam Summer Sale, this Torchlight download and the GOG 2013 #noDRM sale really shouldn’t be so hastily overlooked. (via GOG) Meanwhile in related links Some crazy video game mashup posters Animal Crossing villager now a psycho meme Saints Row IV almost had dragons, but still has Jane Austen

This is not my father’s Superman. I’ll get over Man of Steel, even though I feel I need to view the movie once again just to wrap my head around its eye-boggling special effects. Glad I sneaked a listed to the soundtrack before seeing the film, allowing it time to live and breathe and become its own entity, because Hans Zimmer’s pounding, muscular score remains, for me, the soaring highlight of the new Superman movie. Any lesser composer might actually have tried to emulate John Williams’ music for 1978’s Superman: The Movie, but Zimmer’s score is so diametrically opposed to Williams’ themes it completely defies comparison and redefines our perception of what a Superman symphony should sound like. There’s still an orchestra—not the London Symphony, mind you, but I won’t quibble—and the instrumentation offers huge metallic blast with swooping strings. There’s also a haunting vocal accompaniment, tender piano, undulating synthetic ambient soundscapes and a powerful assemblage of a dozen of the finest drummers in the world. The thunderous percussion serves as the relentless pulse of the action sequences, and the cumulative effect will leave you breathless. Savvy listeners will note the similarities and call-backs to some of Zimmer’s other works—most prominently his ominous music for The Dark Knight, the ethereal solo voce from Gladiator, and the blaring-horn motif first used in Inception — but here the compositions have a decidedly more upbeat thrust. Read more »

A federal hearing today on NSA surveillance programs leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden produced some interesting numbers about the scope of the data collections and other issues. We've produced a roundup below of some of the interesting stats and intelligence gleaned from the discussion.

It’s come out recently that the NSA is keeping records of America’s phone calls, which has led some people to conclude that they’re also listening to and recording those phone calls as well. There’s no evidence to that at the moment, but it hasn’t stopped Brewster Kahle from estimating the cost of storing all that data in the cloud. So what’s the Government shelling out to hold on to all that data? Let’s take a look at Brewster’s (estimated) Millions. Kahle estimated that the U.S. government would be spending roughly $29,000,000 per year to store all our phone calls, but that number is based on a lot of assumptions and location-specific rates for things like the cost of power. To get that number Kahle estimated the number of minutes each person spends talking on the phone. The number Kahle came up with was 300 minutes per month per person. The document says this number is an “estimate from my family’s usage.” There has to be a more accurate number of average minutes Americans spend on the phone. I just did the math, and since getting my current phone in November of last year, I’ve only talked on the phone for 416 minutes total. That puts me at about 60 minutes per month, or one fifth of Kahle’s estimate. A Nielson poll from 2010 says that American teenagers average 646 minutes per month, so maybe they’re skewing the average up and away from people like me who hate talking on the phone. I’ll continue looking for data on a true average of American phone usage, and update if I find it. The rest of the calculation is based on the price of a petabyte of cloud storage running $100,000. It takes for granted that the government would be storing the files uncompressed at 8,000 bytes per second, which puts the number of stored bytes per month at 22,680,000,000,000,000, or 272 petabytes per year. Kahle also assumes the U.S. government is storing these calls at a data center in California where a kilowatt hour costs $0.15, but acknowledges that this could be half the cost if the data was being stored somewhere with cheaper electricity. While I’m personally skeptical of the 300 minutes per month average used to get this number, the rest of the formula seems plausible. If there were a true average of American phone usage per month, the estimate would probably be much closer to reality — that is, if the NSA is even storing phone calls. That’s something there’s still no evidence of, but also probably wouldn’t surprise anyone. (Google Docs via Hacker News, image via Jeremy Yerse) Meanwhile in related links This whole thing started when we found out the NSA was getting records from Verizon Then we met PRISM and realized the problem was much bigger But James Clapper doesn’t see what the big deal is

So what do you guys think? Will the second movie be better than the original? The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows. [movieclipsTRAILERS]

Did the government really disrupt a bomb plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange? The FBI deputy director said that today in a Spygate hearing where the government for the first time said the secret spy techniques publicly disclosed two weeks ago had halted some 50 terror attacks in 20 countries.