Space: Curiosity Says Hello to Mars with a Million Watt Nuclear Laser

Not enough attention has been paid to the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars on August 5, 2012. And there really should, because there's a nuclear powered robot on another fucking planet. Head's up, kids, there's some seriously awesome science going on here.

Let's start off with a bit of basics. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Earth and Mars, can be anywhere from 55 to 400 million kilometers apart. I'm sorry, let me say that again: 400 MILLION KILOMETERS. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. The Curiosity Rover, however, traveled a paltry 350 million km. The landing cycle, as Curiosity dropped it's 1 tonne, 2.5 billion dollar ass on the Red Planet like a nuclear powered sack of awesome, became known as the "7 minutes of terror" because of the 14 minute delay of transmission between the third and fourth rocks from the Sun combined with the seven minute decent; NASA scientists had to wait for seven terrifying minutes to find out if Curiosity landed safely, or in a highly expensive pile of rubble.

After spending a few days stretching its arms and testing it's systems, combined with a four day software update, Curiosity is ready to get down to business, and it's first order of business it to interrogate a rock. With a million fucking watt laser. Stop and let that sink in. It's okay, I'll wait. The Chemistry and Camera instrument (hereby known by its far more impressive name, ChemCam) developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is capable of firing a more than million watt laser in order to figure out the composition of different objects. Over a 10 second period it managed to fire a pulse at the fist-sized Coronation rock 30 times, each pulse applied for five one-billionths of a second each.

"Fucking SCIENCE, bitches!"

The cam part of ChemCam comes into use after the laser has fired. The area of rock hit by the laser becomes a glowing plasma which the camera focuses on using a telescope and analyzes the light given off. Using three spectrometers (one for visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light), ChemCam can determine what elements are contained within the freshly obliterated rock. It's expected that thousands of “targets” will be analyzed in this way over the course of Curiosity’s 24 month mission.

"Fuck you, Johnny 5"

So, if you're interested in finding out more about Curiosity, and you damn well should be, spend some time with our good friend, the Internet. There's a metric shit-tonne of stuff out there about this, and lord knows if you're reading this article, you can find others. Probably with far less colourful language.

Comics: DC Comics' The New 52: One Year Later

Perhaps the single biggest thing to happen to the world of comics since 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics completely rebooted its entire line, nearly one year ago. August 31, 2011, saw the launch of Justice League #1 as the first of the line of 52 new titles. The New 52 not only restarted the shared DC Universe, updated the design and history of many beloved characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, absorbed the characters from the Wildstorm imprint into the main universe, but also changed the way comics are sold. Previously, comics were sold in print format on news stands and comic shops, then later in digital format for viewing on a computer, tablet or smartphone. DC Comics now publishes all titles for same-day release in both physical and digital formats. Not only that, but DC wanted the new numbering format to attract new readers, who may have been too timid to jump into a pre-existing title.

A Little History Lesson...

If you're not terribly familiar with the world of DC Comics (shame on you!), then here's a bit of history of the DC Universe leading up to the New 52. Even the uninitiated know that Superman first showed up in Action Comics #1 back in 1938 and Batman has been around since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 nearly a year later. Many characters came and went over the years, and many more (52, actually) parallel universes (known as the Multiverse) had come about. So, in 1985, DC Comics ran a universe-wide crossover in the 12 issue maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths, in order to realign and make sense of all the characters and bloated story lines. The status quo that emerged "Post-Crisis" remained mainly the same for many years until the Infinite Crisis (2005) event, followed a few years later to Final Crisis (2008) which saw the "death" of Batman, each sparking universe-wide changes. The following year, 2009, gave us the Blackest Night crossover which brought the character Green Lantern to the forefront of the universe, and also brought many previously "dead" characters back from the grave. Next up was the biweekly series Brightest Day which is another Lantern-centric universe-wide crossover following the newly resurrected characters; a great series, but sort of falls apart at the end. But if you're looking for a specific story line to lead you into the New 52, the you'd be looking for 2011's Flashpoint and War of the Green Lanterns, both of which have a direct impact to the newly rebooted universe. Ultimately, none of these are required reads to get yourself into the New 52, but as a comics fan, I would highly recommend any and all of these.

The Dawn of a New Age, Growing Pains

DC Comics hyped up the New 52 for months leading up to last August, and there was much debate as to whether or not which titles were actually going to be affected by this company-wide relaunch. Most specifically, there was much debate as to whether Action Comics and Detective Comics were going to be affected, both titles had retained their original numbering since the 1930s. It's been an industry wide feeling that you do not touch those titles. They're the ones that essentially started the comic book industry as we've known it for the last nearly 80 years. Well, even those were relaunched with a brand new #1 issue. And at first, there was some confusion in the overall shared universe: some titles picked up directly where they left off pre-relaunch (Green Lantern), others (Justice League, Superman, Flash) that take place much earlier, and others ignore much of the canon from the last 20 years.

Many critics complained about how some characters - more specifically female characters - were either dropped, downgraded or oversexualized. It took the editorial teams some time to realign the timeline to be more cohesive, and to reintroduce other characters that were overlooked with the first wave of titles.

One Year Later

It was always understood by the heads of DC that not every title was going to make it through the first year, so some titles were cancelled withing a few issues to make room for others. As it stands now, there have been two waves of new titles, with a third coming in September. Six have already been canceled, and four more will be dropped to make room for the new titles coming with wave three. The plan has always been to maintain a title count of 52.

Now, I can't personally comment on every title that's come and gone over the last year, as I never really planned to read them all. I didn't read every title prior to the reboot, and I probably won't be picking up all of the newest wave. Not every character or team clicks with me, as it won't for most. I also didn't buy every #1 issue from the initial launch. I'm sure most comic fans who remember the early '90s know that a #1 issue doesn't have the same value as it used to in days gone by.

But, from the titles that I have read, and continue to read, I've been pleased by the stories the relaunch provided. I also feel that the relaunch was widely unnecessary, but I come from the school of thought that I don't need an issue #1 to jump into an existing title. It's been said that every comic book is someone's first comic book. There have been some really great stories since the relaunch, but was it really needed? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

Entertainment: The Dark Knight Trilogy

NOTE: This review WILL contain spoilers. If you haven't seen any of these flicks, you should really climb out from that rock you live under and watch them. Now. If you've seen the first two, but haven't seen the third, stop reading this and head down to the theatre and treat yourself to something nice. Then come back and check this article out.

July 20th, 2012 saw the thrilling conclusion to the best comic book movie franchise ever. You may note that I didn't say "arguably the best", because there is no argument here. You might even go so far as to say that this may even be the best trilogy of any kind, but let's not forget the awesomeness that is LOTR.

What made this series so accessible to so many can be directly attributed to the fact that it's deeply rooted in reality, despite the fact that it's a superhero franchise. Director Christopher Nolan took the series as far away from the debacle that the previous Bat-franchise became that started strong with Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) and just fell to pieces with Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever (1995) and the just horrible Batman and Robin (1997), the later of which can be summed up with the words, "Bat-nipples". I mean, is it any wonder that Batman creator Bob Kane died shortly after Batman and Robin? A little piece of all of us died with that steaming pile of suck.

Batman Begins (2005)


Back in 2003, after a series of unsuccessful attempts to bring Batman back to the big screen, Warner Bros. tapped director/writer Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer to begin work on rebooting and retooling the Bat-franchise. 


Drawing heavily from the comic stories of Batman: Year One, The Man Who Falls, and The Long Halloween, Begins tells the origin story of Batman in a way that went far deeper than previous incarnations had. Sure, there's the requisite scene when Bruce Wayne's parents are shot and murdered in Crime Alley (spoiler alert: his parents are dead), but we also see the long road and struggle Bruce faces before finally donning the cape and cowl. 


To further the "gritty realism", Batman Begins gives us a brand new, nipple-free Batsuit, which is designed with a more utility mindset than previous costumes, as well as a new Batmobile called the Tumbler, which is more tank than car. I will admit that when I first saw the Tumbler in early trailers for Begins, I was initially sceptical, but was immediately sold on it when I finally watched the flick in theatres. If you check out the special features of the DVD, the film makers take great pride in the real world tech involved in how this Batman fights crime, making absolutely everything about this series completely believable.


Batman Begins gives us a wonderful ensemble cast featuring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Laim Neeson as Henri Ducard/Ra's al Ghul, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow, Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes and the impeccable Michael Caine as Alfred.

ITHoG Rating: 4.5/5

The Dark Knight (2008)


In the second part in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets of Gotham City. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.

Many actors had expressed interest in playing the Joker, but it was Heath Ledger's chaotic interpretation of the character that Nolan took to - a role that was one of Ledger's last and one that won him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he had realized a way to make the character work that was consistent with the film's tone: he described his Joker as a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy." Throughout The Dark Knight, the Joker states his desire to upset social order through crime, and comes to define himself by his conflict with Batman.

The once shining "White Knight" of Gotham, DA Harvey Dent is horribly scarred in trap set by the Joker, becoming Two-Face, upping the ante for Batman as he battles to save the people of Gotham. TDK ends with Dent falling to his death, and Batman telling Gordon that he'd take the blame for Harvey's crimes and ultimate death, because Dent's image as the White Knight needed to remain untarnished to maintain all the work they did to clean up Gotham, leading to Gordon's closing lines as Batman disappears into the night: "He's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight."

With the principal cast of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine returning, alongside series newcomers Aaron Ekhardt as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes was likely unavailable/unwanted because Tom Cruise) and of course, Heath Ledger as the Joker, TDK became the highest grossing film for 2008, and twelfth highest of all time with a box office gross of over one billion in ticket sales.

ITHog Rating: 5/5

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)


Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Batman has long since gone into hiding, and Bruce Wayne has retired to a life of reclusiveness, withdrawing from the public eye of Gotham. He's become haggard, and walks with a cane after years of punishment as Batman. Gotham City is in a state of peace, brought on by the Dent Act which allows police greater powers to clean up organized crime. At a ceremony celebrating Harvey Dent, Gordon is about to reveal the truth about Dent and Batman, but decides against doing so, believing that the people of Gotham aren't ready to hear the truth.

Rises introduces some new characters to the Nolanverse: Selina Kyle, a highly skilled cat burglar, and the relentlessly unstoppable Bane, whose intellect is as vast as his physical strength, setting forth a chain of events that brings Batman out of retirement. Also introduced is Maranda Tate, the potential love interest for Bruce, and John Blake, a straight laced cop who manages to figure out Batman's identity. After the arrival of Bane, both Gordon and Blake encourage Batman's return, but Alfred objects, feeling that Batman's time has long since passed and that Bruce will be risking his life in returning to the cape and cowl.

DKR ties more closely with Batman Begins, than it does with The Dark Knight, with many references to Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows. In fact, when Batman confronts Bane, Bane claims to be the new leader of the League of Shadows and that he will finish the work that Ra's started. In this confrontation, Bane overpowers Batman, breaks his back (was there really any doubt that he wouldn't?) and throws him into a prison known only as The Pit to suffer as he watches Gotham crumble to ashes. The inmates tell Bruce of the only person to have successfully escaped from The Pit: a child born into the prison who escaped out of sheer force of will. Bruce assumes this child is Bane.

Bane lures most of Gotham's police force underground and sets off explosions across the city, trapping the officers underground and turning Gotham City into an isolated city-state: any attempt to leave the city will result in the detonation of the Wayne Enterprises fusion core, which has been converted into a bomb. Bane publicly reveals the cover-up of Dent's death and releases the prisoners in Blackgate Prison. The rich and powerful are forcibly brought before a show trial presided over by Jonathan Crane. After an attempt by Special Forces soldiers to infiltrate the city fails, the government blockades Gotham and the city regresses into a state of lawlessness.

While chaos and terror run rampant over Gotham, Bruce recovers from his injuries and retrains himself to be Batman. He successfully escapes the prison and returns to Gotham, enlisting Kyle, Blake, Tate, Gordon and Lucius Fox to help liberate the city and stop the fusion bomb before it explodes. Batman subdues Bane, but Tate intervenes, revealing herself as Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra's al Ghul. It was she who escaped the prison as a child, before returning with her father and the League of Shadows to rescue Bane, the one person who aided her in prison. She plans to complete her father's work by destroying Gotham and avenging his death at Wayne's hands.

The Dark Knight Rises draws the trilogy to a thrilling close, with a story that is masterfully told, drawing heavily from the comics story arcs of Knightfall and No Man's Land, and includes so many twists and turns that it will leave you reeling for many hours after. The first hour of the 2:45 run time feels very claustrophobic and suffocating, as Bruce struggles to become Batman once more, only to find himself crushed and broken. The tension rises as we're drawn to an exciting climax in a truer battle of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. It's hard to tell who is which as Bane and Batman fight to the last.

Once again, Bale, Oldman, Freeman and Caine round out the recurring cast, joined by Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake, and Tom Hardy masterfully portraying Bane. In my opinion, DKR closes the Dark Knight Trilogy in the only logical way possible, and ties up any loose ends with a clever and exciting script. To compare it to TDK in terms of which is better is like comparing apples to orangutans. Both are awesome.


ITHoG Rating; 5/5

Technology: Obama Pledges $70M for Robotics Research

The US federal government has pledged millions to science and technology research in recent years. Earlier this week it was reported that President Obama himself announced that the government would pledge $70 million to a pool of $500 million donated by universities, research institutions, and private industry to develop new robotics technologies. The President made the announcement at the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University.


The project, called the National Robotics Initative, is part of a wider effort by the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership to research breakthrough technologies. The group consists of multiple government agencies, universities and colleges, corporations, and private industry groups. While the government has pledged $70 million to the initiative, other agencies have filled the pot with up to $500 million to fund the research project.

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots acting in direct support of and in a symbiotic relationship with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the NSF, NASA, the NIH, and the USDA.


The National Robotics Initiative will leverage resources at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and other government agencies to build robots that will be useful not just in military and defense applications, but civilian ones as well. For example, the National Science Foundation said they hope to use the initiative to build “co-robots” that can work alongside humans in day-to-day activities.

Don't worry, it's peaceful.

While the $70 million the US government has pledged to the $500 million project isn’t a lot of money when compared to other defense projects, the money could make a real difference in civilian research. Time will tell whether the research institutions turn out technologies that will be adopted by the public.

The President joked in his speech at Carnegie Mellon that one of his responsibilities as Commander in Chief is to “keep an eye on robots,” and that he was “pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful.”

Technology: The 10,000 Year Clock

"We are as gods and we might as well get good at it"
Stewart Brand, 1968, from the Whole Earth Catalog

Our society has often had the problem of being short sighted. And we've had an even bigger problem with planning ahead. Just look at the fiasco that was the Y2K crisis where computers built to the turn of the century only used two digits to denote years, IE: 12/31/99. This could have been a non-issue if the designers of computers had the forethought to realize that a new century would come about at some point or another, and just designed it right from the beginning. Did they think, "Oh, fuck it. Let it be someone else's problem"? Now, of course the disaster that was going to land on our head's on 01/01/00 never happened. But it could have, and it could have been the most epic of fails.

One man, however, decided that it’s important to look forward. Computer scientist, designer, and inventor Danny Hillis came up with an idea in 1989 to design a clock that would keep time for the next 10,000 years. No one can predict what the world will be like 10,000 years from now. In fact, there’s a good chance our civilization could be extinct by then (thanks, Mayans). However, according to the Long Now Foundation, started by Hillis in 1996 to support the project, most civilizations last about 10,000 years.

On left, a technical drawing of the Clock.
On right, a much smaller prototype version of what the Clock will actually be.

Designed to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking, the 10,000 Year Clock is of monumental scale - so mind bogglingly huge, that they had to build it inside a mountain in West Texas. Hillis has been thinking about and working on the Clock for more than 22 years. He wanted to build a Clock that ticks once a year, where the century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. The vision was, and still is, to build a Clock that will keep time for the next 10,000 years. Now that's a commitment!

A project like this obviously isn’t cheap, but Hillis and team have some good support, specifically from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos who has given $42 million to the project. Bezos didn’t just give the project a boatload of money; he’s also giving it a mountain to build in. According to a website Bezos recently launched called 10000yearclock.net, Bezos has been helping Hillis with the project for the past six years.

Hillis will be building the clock on Bezos’ land in western Texas. It’s the first of what the Long Now Foundation hopes to be many millennial clocks that will be built around the world. A second site has already been purchased in Nevada for the second clock.

Does not care for clocks.

The clock actually needs two to three people to wind it. However, it also runs off of solar power, so it can technically never have a visitor and still tick away. It can also run for 100 years without solar power. So, granted we lose our sun, the clock could work a century without it before it needs humans to wind it up.  But by then, the Earth will likely be run by Morloks, and I don't think they'll give a rat's ass about a clock.

To conserve energy, the clock doesn’t show the time unless someone prompts it. Otherwise, the visitor will see the time of the last visitor. This is pretty neat, in a way, since you can see the last time a person had visited the clock, which could be days or decades.



The clock uses 20 huge horizontal gears called Geneva wheels, which are 8 feet in diameter and weigh 1,000 pounds each. This mechanical computer calculates the over 3.5 million different melodies that the chimes will ring. The father of ambient music, Brian Eno, composed the never-repeating melody generator that rings the clock’s chimes, making each visit to the clock 100-percent unique. There are 10 huge chimes that are optimized for the acoustics of the shaft space.  Each user’s experience is unique and no two users will ever create the same sound, much like how the clock’s chimes will work.

Carved into the mountain are five room-sized anniversary chambers: 1 year, 10 year, 100 year, 1,000 year, and 10,000 year anniversaries. The one year anniversary chamber is a special orrery. In addition to the planets and the Earth's moon, it includes all of the interplanetary probes launched during the 20th century, humankind's first century in space. Among others, you'll see the Grand Tour: Voyager 2's swing by of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The Clock will activate and run the orrery once a year on a pre-determined date at solar noon.

They aren't planning to build the animations for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 year anniversary chambers, but they will instead leave those to future generations. The team will be providing a mechanical interface into those chambers that provides those future builders with power and the correct Clock triggering events. They do, however, intend to build the animation for the 10 year anniversary chamber, but haven't yet decided what it will be.

Visiting the Clock will take a commitment. The nearest airport is several hours away by car, and the foot trail to the Clock is rugged, rising almost 2,000 feet above the valley floor. If you are interested in visiting the Clock when it is complete (in quite a few years), you can subscribe to Clock Interest by emailing a blank message to clockinterest@10000yearclock.net. I know I plan on making the trek. I hope it'll be worth the wait.

Entertainment: Green Lantern Review

NOTE: There are no spoilers in this review. If you haven't seen it, don't be afraid to read on!
 
I had the fortune yesterday of taking in a advance screening of Green Lantern two days before it's official release tomorrow.

I have to say, that with my fanboy tendencies towards this character, and the Green Lantern Corps in general, I counted myself as one of those who needed to be awed. And I was. Mostly.

The screening I saw was in 3D, and while it wowed me in a lot of ways, in others, not so much. That being said, unlike a movie like Avatar, I don't think that Green Lantern was designed for 3D, and as a result, some visual effects fall short. I'll be taking the flick in again in a week or so in the good, old 2D, and I'm predicting that the few things I didn't like before will end up blowing me away.

Yeah, I know a few things
about Green Lantern.

Staying true to the source material, the story follows the general comic book origin story, where a cocky test pilot is given a green power ring from a dying purple alien, who crash landed not too far from where said cocky test pilot happens to be. That was no spoiler, that's just general knowledge. The only way you wouldn't know that bit, is if you lived under a rock. You don't live under a rock, do you?

The next little while follows Hal Jordan, the first human to be inducted into the Green Lantern Corps, and his training to use the awesome power he now wields.

Ryan Reynolds was perfect for the role of Hal Jordan, due to his own natural wit and cockiness that meshes perfectly with the character. Peter Sarsgaard and Mark Strong also are wonderfully cast in the roles of Hector Hammond and Sinestro, respectively. All in all, the whole film was cast to perfection. I had my druthers going into this with Blake Lively as Carol Ferris, but she pulled if off nicely, and yes, I spent a fair bit of time imagining her in the tight, skimpy, pink Star Sapphire suit.

A Gatling gun made out of light? Awesome.

There were a few divergences from the source material, but nothing that would make this fanboy jump up and cry fail. But the trouble is, with movies like this, you're never going to please everybody, but you can do an honest, and entertaining piece of film making that hopefully a lot of people will like. Director Martin Campbell has done a beautiful job balancing this tightrope, and made a highly entertaining flick that will hopefully open the doors to more of DC Comics' properties in the future.

Ultimately, I give Green Lantern a 4/5 power rings.

Geek Culture: Life at the Googleplex

Ever think you have the wrong job? Even if you have an awesome job, with great pay and fantastic perks, you don't have anything compared to what the folks who work for Google do.

From amazing cafeterias to sleeping pods - yes, sleeping pods - Google employees definitely have it good. But besides being able to ride around the office on scooters, Google’s employees have another thing to be happy about. Google employees are the best-paid in the IT industry. In fact, they make 23% more than the IT industry's market pay average, followed by Amazon at 17%, and both Apple and Microsoft pay around 15% more than the average IT starting salary, according to a PayScale survey. So, if you can't get you can't get yourself a job at Google, there are still plenty of other places where you can get a fat paycheque.



Besides being paid significantly more than the average, Google employees also save money in tons of other ways, making their paychecks last longer. For example, Googlers don’t have to pay for their meals at the office. They have a wide array of chef-prepared choices, some of which come from produce grown right at the office. Employees can eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for free. They even have barbeques during the summer. So, Google employees can save on groceries.

In addition, they also have multiple gyms and trainers at the office, so there’s another major expense to cross off the list. Going to the doctor won’t cost you a dime either and you won’t have to make time to leave the office to visit your doc. Google has its own doctor on hand to help them out. If you don’t have time to do your laundry during the work week, you can just take it with you to work and do it at Google. Yes, you’ll still have to do your own laundry, but it’s free, and you can do it between making your own cappuccinos and espresso. You can also drop your laundry off for dry cleaning, alterations, and also shoe repair, which we assume will cost you something.

Besides saving money on food, coffee, fitness, health, and laundry, the Google office also has other perks, like sleep pods for taking naps, a masseuse on hand that gives you a free massage on your birthday, and use of a fleet of Toyota Prius hybrid cars. We could go on and on about why Google is an awesome place to work, but instead, you can just drool over the video below from the Travel channel.


There's a video on YouTube about life at the Googleplex, but I'll save you the hassle of hunting it down. While you watch it, I'm going to go talk to my boss about some changes that need to be made around here.

 

Technology/Entertainment: Sony Pictures Hack

Sony just can't seem to catch a break. Today marks the first time that Sony has been able to get the PlayStation Network fully up and running since the major hack in April (SOE has been back up since a few weeks ago). It also has significance for Sony in a wholly different way: the Sony Pictures site has been hacked, and the integrity of information for more than one million users has been compromised.

Hacker group LulzSec claims to have successfully hacked SonyPictures.com, managing to gain themselves access to user accounts including passwords, e-mail addresses, full home addresses, and date of birth.

On top of that, Sony Pictures accounts also have a number of opt-in features that contain further information about each user depending on what each signs up for. LulzSec state all of that detail was available to them. They also managed to get the details of all admin accounts for the website.

But unfortunately, the pain for Sony doesn’t seem to stop there, though. 75,000 music codes and 3.5 million music coupons are thought to have been taken. We believe these are codes that allow you to purchase Sony music tracks at a discounted price, or in some cases even for free.

The most shocking and possibly damning thing revealed by this hack is the fact that Sony stored all the Sony Pictures account passwords in plain text. No encryption means no work for the hackers, beyond gaining access to the server.

This is an excerpt from a post by LulsSec on Pastebin.com

Our goal here is not to come across as master hackers, hence what we're about to reveal: SonyPictures.com was owned by a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now. From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING. Why do you put such faith in a company that allows itself to become open to these simple attacks?


What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext, which means it's just a matter of taking it. This is disgraceful and insecure: they were asking for it.


This is an embarrassment to Sony; the SQLi link is provided in our file contents, and we invite anyone with the balls to check for themselves that what we say is true.

This is sure to cause yet more upset for Sony in the press and with users. It also means they have millions of codes to mark as unusable on their system asap.

Comics: DC to Relaunch Their ENTIRE Line!

(JUSTICE LEAGUE #1;
Art by Jim Lee and Scott Williams;
Colors by Alex Sinclair;
Copyright: DC Comics)

Coming to a Newstand/Smartphone near you, this September... DC Comics has announced plans to relaunch their ENTIRE line, spanning across the entire DC Universe, giving us 52 issue #1s and will feature "younger" and cosmetically redesigned versions of the heroes of the DC Universe.

Written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Jim Lee, Justice League will be the first of the more than 50 titles to debut in September, each of which will go on sale with same day digital releases via DC's various mobile applications and Web store. The initiative is designed explicitly to make the DC Universe more palatable for new readers and, in the words of DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio, "today's audience."

Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are among the DC Comics characters who will be "injected with new life," according to Dan DiDio, who spoke with USA Today.

In September, more than 50 more first issues will debut, introducing readers to stories that are grounded in each character's specific legend but also reflect today's real-world themes and events. [Jim] Lee spearheaded the redesign of more than 50 costumes to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old.

"We looked at what was going on in the marketplace and felt we really want to inject new life in our characters and line," says Dan DiDio, who co-publishes DC with Lee. "This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience."

DiDio's remarks would seem to indicate that existing DC readers are going to see major changes in the status quo and continuities of their favorite characters and titles. while not entirely throwing out the existing histories of these iconic characters.

There's no conceivable reason to mess with high-selling moneymakers like Batman Incorporated, Green Lantern, Batman: The Dark Knight and, well, other Batman titles, and to do so would be a huge mistake, especially since Grant Morrison's major Leviathan uber-arc is, alongside Geoff Johns's Green Lantern, the only major DC title with ongoing stories continuing past August. The Superman and Wonder Woman franchises, on the other hand, are in desperate need of a shake-up. J. Michael Straczynski absolutely murdered any narrative momentum those books may have had before.

Unfortunately, while DC is unquestionably making a bold risk, it could blow up in their face just as easily as it could drag comics publishing kicking, screaming and tantruming into the twenty-first century. DC isn't launching a manageable line of high-class titles that they can slowly expand; they are flooding the market with fifty-two new series. Fifty-two. I'm not sure there are fifty-two exemplary creative teams in all of comics. Inevitably, a large number of these books are going to be a complete bust, and the new casual digital fan they're courting with this initiative won't have any idea which those will be. This has the potential to cause a big problem in the comics world, akin the the crash in the early 90s, when similar relaunches occurred.

Make no mistake, this entire endeavor is focused on the digital market. DC isn't dumb. They know print is dying. They know they have no chance at beating Marvel in the print market, as years and years of examples have proven. Rejuvenating the characters (literally) and providing a fresh start all across the line isn't about a quick sales bump in the direct market. In fact, it isn't about the direct market at all. It's all so that people logging into comiXology can check out these digital DC comics they've heard about don't see an issue number in the 900s after Action Comics and throw up their hands. This being said, there has been no statement about whether Action Comics, or Detective Comics - two of the longest running titles in comics ever - will get a new set of issue numbers, or if they will remain untouched.

A thing of the past?

And what about those struggling retailers that, as Brian Michael Bendis so bluntly put it, are getting "fucked in the ass" by this decision? If your shop is a small-town glorified UPS depot that makes its living off of pull lists, you're probably not going to make it. If you've built a loyal clientele, are savvy enough to get to know your customers' tastes and hand-sell them titles, and maintain a consistent backlist of high-selling, high-quality trade paperbacks and hardcovers, then chances are you have nothing to worry about.

But what if it goes wrong? DC is burning a lot of bridges in the interest of building this new one, and if both the direct market and digital consumers don't come to this in sufficient enough droves, this is going to be an incredibly difficult, if not impossible, car to turn around. They're risking losing the support of both their existing retail partners and their hardcore fanbase in the interest of drawing an entirely new readership. While this is exactly the sort of drastic action digital comics proponents have been praying for for years, make no mistake, if this blows up, DC is completely screwed.

Entertainment: The Hobbit's Return to Middle-Earth

Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit is underway. And despite some production setbacks, everything now appears to be rolling full steam ahead. So much so that they are confident in revealing titles and release dates for the two Hobbit films. The two parts will be called will be called The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again. The first of which will be released on December 13, 2012, while the latter will hit theaters December 13, 2013. For all those J.R.R. Tolkien fans out there, that’s two straight years of Christmas presents from Jackson and crew.

Much of the cast from The Lord of the Rings whose characters appear in The Hobbit will be returning to Middle-Earth, including Elijah Wood as Frodo, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Sir Christopher Lee as Sauruman, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel and Andy Serkis as Gollum. New comers to the world the Jackson has built are Martin Freeman, of Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy fame, as the young Bilbo Baggins - Ian Holm will return as the older Bilbo - and Stephen Fry as the Lord of Laketown. Rumour has it - and this in only rumour at this point - that Leonard Nimoy will voice the legendary dragon, Smaug.

I have to say, that as a fan of the LotR trilogy, I'm ecstatic that Jackson finally returned to direct The Hobbit, as I feel, he is the only director of truly giving Middle-Earth the justice it deserves. It was his vision that brought the other films to life, and it should never been in anyone else's hands.

Entertainment: Wonder Woman Cancelled

Last year, it was reported that Warner Bros. Television had plans on developing a Wonder Woman TV series (to fill the void left by Smallville ending its 10 year run), teaming up with writer/producer David E. Kelly to pitch to major TV networks. Virtually all of the major networks turned down the series, but NBC, the final network to initially pass on the project, announced that they had ordered a pilot on January 21, 2011. The plot is described as "a reinvention of the iconic DC Comics title, in which Wonder Woman – aka Diana Prince – is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."

On Februrary 16, 2011, it was announced that actress Adrienne Palicki (pictured right) was cast as the title character, with Elizabeth Hurley as a potentially recurring villain, Veronica Cole.

Despite fan disappointment over the modernization of the costume, all seemed to be ready to roll out for a Fall 2011 launch.

And then, the bottom fell out. NBC pulled the plug.

NBC chairman, Robert Greenblatt, explained why they dropped the ball on the series: "I hate to disappoint anybody. I know there are legions of fans of the original show. I don’t know if it’s cursed or what. I just have this one experience. They made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job. You look at what you have, what you need, and it just didn’t seem to fit in with what we were doing. We did what was best for the schedule. It does give one pause. You’re almost damned if you and damned if you don’t. It’s tricky."

He had more to say about the fanboy furor over the costume: "I was surprised there was such an uproar. But that didn’t have anything to do with whether the show got picked up. I love that it got so much attention. All that engagement from people whether it was positive or negative was good. And she did ultimately have these little hot pants…"

Hot pants or no, unless another network picks up the series, Wonder Woman will end up like the pilot for the ill-fated Aquaman series: on the cutting room floor.