Smarter Wikipedia Adds Relevant Links to Wikipedia

Lifehacker:

“Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Smarter Wikipedia adds a “Related Articles” box to the mass-edited encyclopedia’s left-hand menu, helping you quickly dig into and around a topic—or easily start a long spiral of Wiki-traveling.

Assuming you can responsibly break away from the big gray information machine, Smarter Wikipedia is a helpful navigational tool. Beyond the “Related Articles” box, the add-on can search Wikipedia (or Wikipedia’s pages via customized Google query) for any term you highlight and right-click on. The add-on is built small and light, too, as its author points out, aiming to put little drag on your open-source browser.

Smarter Wikipedia is a free add-on, works wherever Firefox does.”

Smarter Wikipedia [Firefox Add-Ons]

Are Video Games Teaching Kids The Skills They Need For The Apocalypse?

Instant classic….

i09:

“Are video games like Fallout 3 teaching our children the skills they’ll need, like gathering dew from human skulls, when their world eventually turns into a brutal hellscape? A video debate helps you decide.

Once again, The Onion AV Club knocks it out of the park with a great debate about whether of not kids will truly be prepared for the end of the world with their video games, or are these cotton-candy games making it seem deceptively easy?”

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

Pirate Bay Witness’ Wife Overwhelmed With Flowers

Piracy = flowers……

Torrentfreak: “Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis appeared as an expert witness at the Pirate Bay trial yesterday. He was questioned on the link between the decline of album sales and filesharing. Wallis told the court that his research has shown that there is no relation between the two.

He was heavily attacked by industry lawyers Danowsky, Pontén and Wadsted who did everything they could to discredit and slander his reputation. When Wallis was asked whether he wanted to be reimbursed for travel expenses etc, he light-heartedly suggested sending some flowers to his wife.

His statement was picked up by the large audience listening in to the live audio from the trial and flowers soon began arriving at the Wallis’ house.

Roger’s wife, Görel Wallis, wasn’t surprised by her husband’s whim in court:

“We have been married for 38 years. He proposed half an hour after we met and I said maybe. After a day, he had convinced me”, she said.

At a local flower store in Stockholm they had received 100 orders by 20.30 last night. Owner Kristian Skald said that two nearby stores had received an equal amount of orders.

“Last delivery was 33 bouquets Thursday night. There will be more to come on Friday,” the owner of the flower shop commented.

Today, Friday, the couple celebrates their wedding day anniversary and on Saturday it’s Görel’s birthday. Roger Wallis feels she is worth all the flowers she gets.

“She was very worried before the trial. They questioned my competence and that made her very sad. She hadn’t slept for two days,” Roger said.

A web page has been set up that collects what has been given so far, complete with an ever-growing stack of CDs that show how many sales the music-industry has lost by slandering the Professor. Thus far, in an amazing show of generosity from a section of society labeled by the music industry as ‘thieves’, more than 4100 Euros worth of flowers, chocolate and gifts have been sent to the couple. The Wallis’ soon ran out of vases for the flowers but Görel knows that sharing is caring and will distribute the flowers to all residents in their apartment building.

“We will make sure it will be beautiful here.”

Fallout 3 Case Mod

Can I have this, like now?

Ripten:

“If you plan on playing Fallout 3 on a PC, then this old school case mod, made to look like a 1960s television set, has got to be the way to go. Decked out with hardwood paneling, the foundation for this bomb shelter essential is a Soviet TV receiver REKORD, 1961.”

VNM Special: “Who Watches the Watchmen?”

/Film: “The New Frontiersman has a new retro Watchmen viral video — “Who Watches the Watchmen?” A Veidt Music Network (VMN) special from 1983. A fun parody of the old MTV specials of the mid-80’s.”

Zack Snyder Talks About Adapting The Dark Knight Returns

Please God let this happen…..

/Film:

At San Diego Comic-Con last year, Zack Snyder said that he “would love to see Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns made into a movie.” Later at the Entertainment Weekly Visionaries panel, Miller told Snyder “You can do it anytime you want to Zack”. To which Snyder said he was making a note of Miller’s response.

Earlier this week in our video blog discussion about the future of Batman movies, I suggested that after doing a third Batman film Warner Bros not proceed with another sequel. It is expected that Batman 3 might be the last Batman movie for series helmer Christopher Nolan, and I would love them to instead jump into the future and do an adaptation of The Dark Knight returns or jump into the even further future and do a Batman Beyond movie. That way they could potentially return to the Batman series if Nolan wanted to return after a few years of rest.

Lets be realistic, a Zack Snyder adaptation of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns will probably never happen, but it’s fun to imagine what could be. FirstShowing got the chance to ask Snyder what he would do with the material if he ever got the chance to bring it to the big screen.

I think the thing that’s awesome about Dark Knight, like Watchmen, is that it is a complete and total experience, that was unlike anything anyone has ever seen, and still is,” Snyder said. “I think the big challenge for me would be — it’s so ‘montage-y’ and so media thick, that you just have to — that’s the techniques you’d have to develop and make work. But as far as the rest goes, the thing I’d be really interested in is that kind of Frank [Miller] narration over that cool action, that’s a thing we haven’t really seen in that context.

Miller’s four-issue comic book miniseries, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, was first published in 1986. It has since become one of the most popular graphic novel/trade paperbacks of all time. It reintroduced Batman to the general public as the psychologically dark character of his original 1930s conception, and helped to usher in an era of “grim and gritty” superheroes from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s…”

Harry Potter Plot Origin Revealed

He he he…….

Portal gun maker’s new BioShock syringe

Offworld:

“Harrison ‘Volpin‘ Krix’s next trick, after creating one of the best fan-made games props we’ve ever seen with his Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device? As he has previously mentioned, a trip into Rapture, with a full scale version of BioShock’s Big Daddy suit.

If it’s even half as good as this Adam syringe — the same used by Little Sister to extract and ingest the genetic enhancer for reprocessing — then we’re in for quite a treat.”

Bioshock Little Sister ADAM Syringe [Volpin Props]

Galactica Second Coming

Battlestar Sitrep:

Ever wondered how Richard Hatch would have continued Battlestar Galactica? Check out the trailer for Battlestar Galactica The Second Coming, that Hatch produced on his own as a pitch to Universal Studios many years yahrens ago:

Clemson develops ballin’ system to measure slam dunk intensity

Engadget:

“For those of you who think knowing the miles per hour of each pitch is the best part of a baseball game — and sometimes, it really is — Clemson University civil engineering professor Scott Schiff and his students have created a system that’ll measure the force of the dunks and display it on the overhead screens instantly. In one game against East Carolina, Clemson forward Raymond Sykes managed a dunk that measured 30 G’s — which we’re told is mighty impressive, but really, we don’t have much comparison at this point. The team hopes its system gets adopted for other venues, and for sake of having more excuses to stare at the giant TVs and not the court, we hope so, too. Hit up the read link to see video of the system in action.”

[Via PhysOrg]