This week’s edition of links comes a bit early, since I expect to be cut off from civilization all weekend, doing the final edits on my manuscript. Read on for news on Apple, Batman, realistic lightsabers, the obligatory vampires, Steampunk Optimus Prime, and more!
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This week’s collection of links brings you a new Vampire Diaries trailer, the award for Sexiest Vampire, the science of zombie outbreaks, armored felines, the bike-sharing program that will lead to the One World Government, Batman, and more!

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This Week on the Web brings us news on Deadpool and Green Lantern, Batman, vampires, ignorant preachers, and more!
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30 Days of Night: Dark Days: (video) A direct-to-DVD sequel to that other vampire movie, which actually looks pretty good. (via io9)

Another Sucker Punch Image: The killer mech has a pink bunny rabbit painted on the face. This movie keeps getting more and more awesome. Oh, and it’s a toy, too.

Another Inception Infographic: Nifty, though I’mnot sure it’s right about where Cobb goes to limbo. Eh, whatevs. (via The Daily What)

Six Evil Corporations with Terrible Business Plans Seriously, how does Umbrella plan to make a profit?

Shift By Tim Kring: (video) I love the idea of book trailers. This novel, from the creator of Heroes, seems to tell a Manchurian Candidate style story about the assassination of JFK. (via io9)

Rambo fact Sheet: Including such vital information as “Number of Kills by Rambo with Shirt On” and “Number of Kills by Rambo with Shirt Off”. (via Matt Burdell)

Arnold is 63: And here are 63 facts about The Austrian Oak.

Metroid: Other M Gameplay Footage: (video) A new side-scrolling Metroid for the Wii? Yes please.

Video Game Demakes: A “demake” is when a game is remade for a previous-generation console. Nostalgia rears its ugly head once more. (And it’s awesome.)

Dancer v. Ice Cream Truck: “I’m so cool, I’m gonna dance in the street! Watch the cars swerve around me!” “Hey, look out for that…” (via Matt Burdell and Jon Nightingale) (local cache)

Aimbot!: (video) What life would be like if aimbots were real. (via The Daily What)

The Cracked Guide to Fonts: This article may contain the only legitimate use of Papyrus and Comic Sans.

An Illustrated Guide to Facial Hair: Turns out I’ve been wearing a Circle Beard, not a Goatee, for the last decade or so. Who knew?

What Everyone Knows: The James Randi Educational Foundation would like to point out an important fact: we’re probably wrong.

Automatic Image Deblurring: a Microsoft research team has developed a way to automatically correct the “shaky-cam” effect you often see on hand-held and camera phones. The first clear image of Bigfoot is certain to follow. (via Slashdot)

Vulcan Mind Melds are Sorta Possible: If you reeeeeeeealy love the other person. (via io9)

Court Overturns California Ban on Gay Marriage: I want to do the Happy Dance of Screw You, Bigots, but I’m honestly worried about what the Supreme Court will do when they get their hands on this.

Stephen Colbert on The Obama Diaries: Conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham wrote a book called The Obama Diaries, which purport to be written by Obama himself. Stephen Colbert pretty much calls her an idiot and a racist to her face, and I fall in love with yet another man. Sorry, Eric. (via Blag Hag)

The Modesty Survey: Did you know that showing a bra strap, even unintentionally, is a stumbling block to young Christian men? Well now you do. (via Pharyngula)

Nomskulls: Open skull, receive tasty, tasty brains. (via BoingBoing)

The Epic Tale of Missy the Missing Cat: “Hey, can you drop everything and help me with a personal problem?” “Why yes, yes I can.” Lesson: do not invoke the wrath of a creative type. (via Slashdot)

Inception Infographic, Another view of Inception’s levels: A handy guide to who dreamed what and why.

The Secret Behind the Music of Inception: (Video) You know how time slows down radically when you’re in a dream? Well…

Philips Carousel Commercial: (Video) A two-minute long, comlex, bullet-time-esque shoot. Very cool. (via Cleolinda Jones)

The Gay Reichs: (Video) I bet you didn’t know that Hitler was gay, did you? Or that the SS were gay, too? And hand-picked because of the naturally violent tendencies of gays? Well Reverend Scott Lively is here to educate you, with his new book The Pink Swastika. This clip is a Daily Show interview. Choice Quotes: “I’d rather be hanging out on a beach, but I got stuck with dealing with gay Nazis,” and “What you hate the most, you secretly are?” “…I’m not gay.” (via Pharyngula)

Sucker Punch by Zack Snyder: (Video) Hot girls + katanas + guns + samurai + dragons + giant battle mechs = my ass, in a seat, opening night.

Nick Cave to revise The Crow reboot: I’m cautiously optimistic about this, but the last time we said “let’s get a dark and gritty rock star to remake this classic goth film”, we got Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, which still makes me want to punch babies.

Chuck and Tina Spread TB: Episode One: These guys have a podcast about The Vampire Diaries, which I guested on a while back, and now they’ve turned their attention to True Blood. Give them a listen.

Boycott Bill Murray for a Better America: Bill Murray is worse than the homosexuals and liberal socialist philosophers, according to this article. At first. I honestly couldn’t tell if this was a joke. (via Richard Šchwab)

Teen dressed as the Joker burns down his high school: It was a great plan until he stood around waiting for the cops, then said “see that burning building over there? Yeah, that was me.”

An ant drinking from rain drop: (Video) This little bugger actually looks cute while it’s wrestling with its rain drop, and when it faceplants right onto it? Squee. (via BoingBoing)

BlindType: (Video) A keyboard for iPhone (boo) and eventually Android (yay!), this thing’s auto-correct is amazing. So amazing that, if it detects you’re holding it at a weird angle or typing a few letters off, it will adjust to you. It will even let you type with no on-screen keyboard at all. Awesome.

Mass. Legislature approves plan to bypass Electoral College: The Electoral College is a terrible idea. This is a good way to get rid of it.

Government of, by and for the Corporation: Roger Ebert’s blog on why immunity for BP is insane and wrong.

It’s more than genes, it’s networks and systems: A biologist explains why your understanding of evolution – even if you believe in it – is probably wrong. PZ Myers discusses: how environment can lead to something that appears to be mutation, but is not; how most mutations are neutral; how multiple genes/mutations go into creating a single expression; how evolution occurs at a population level, not an individual level; and how network theory comes into play.

The Fusion of the Chromosomes: (Video) Dr. Ken Miller shows one way in which evolution could have been falsified, and goes on to show how the evidence supports evolution. (via The Friendly Atheist)

Pictures of the Horcruxes and Hallows from the next Harry Potter: Can you believe that this whole thing started a decade ago?

If Movie Titles Were Honest: My favorite is the Harry Potter poster.

The Science of Inception: A quick info-dump on the science of dreaming.

Super Heroes vs Westboro Baptists: In case you don’t know, The Westboro Baptist Church, led by raving lunatic Fred Phelps, is the “Got Hates Fags” chanting, soldier’s funeral protesting, group of asshats that make the news every now and then. They’re protesting ComicCon this week, because “Batman and Superman are idols”, or some such crap. ComicCon attendees are protesting back, by, for instance, chanting “WHAT DO WE WANT?” “GAY SEX!” “WHEN DO WE WANT IT?” “NOW!” All while dressed up like Bender. Also: a trekkie with a sign that says “God hates Jedi”. I love these people. (via Tim Chestnutt)

The History of Hawkman: This is why this character’s backstory is radioactive. God.

New Iron Man Toys: I have to admit, I’m a total whore for the Silver Centurion armor.

Thor and Captain America Concept Art Posters: These are just beautiful. I just hope they make Thor as cool as he could be, a la 300. And I really wish they’d used the Ultimate Mjolnir. (local cache: Thor, Captain America)

First Photo of Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern: I want to be excited for this movie, but I just can’t seem to make myself care. Anyway, get back to me when the headline reads First Photo of Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. That I will squee over.

Devil: From the “Mind” of M. Night Shyamalan: (Video) I bet the girl who gets bitten or whatever in the first few seconds is the devil, and the twist is that M. Night Shyamalan is still a terrible filmmaker.

Super Mario Takes to the Sidewalk: (Video) This is part of some kid’s Master’s thesis, focusing on matching live action to CGI. And it’s amazing. (via Topless Robot)

Mega Man’s Most Dangerous Foe: (Video) Goddamn spikes. (via Topless Robot)

Cardboard Warfare: (Video) You know what? There are way too many people in the world that are way better at special effects than I am. (via Gizmodo)

Carl Sagan: A Universe Not Made For Us: (Video) Favorite quote: “We are the custodians of life’s meaning… knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth, than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find four ourselves a worthy goal.” (via Pharyngula)

Vatican makes attempted ordination of women a grave crime: The Vatican this week instituted a rule making the “attempted ordination” of women as grave a crime as the sexual abuse of minors. Which means I guess people who attempt to ordain women won’t be punished, either.

Dinobot Combiner: The fact there there is no Dinobot gestalt is Transformers cannon is a crime against humanity. (local cache)

The Web Book: A pretty comprehensive guide to setting up your own web site, from registering a domain name, finding a host, coding HTML, CSS, Wordpress, MySQl, and PHP. Chances are, if you want to do something with your best site, this book addresses it. And the best part: it’s a free download.

App Inventor for Android: From Google Labs, programming for the rest of us. App Inventor is a tool that makes is remarkably simple to build a user interface and wire up the logic to an Android app. If you have an HTC Hero, or a Droid, or any of the other Google phones out there, you might be interested in this.

Cruz Reader from Velocity Micro : (Video) An neat Android-based tablet. I wish it was hooked up to Barnes & Noble instead of Broder’s, and the touchscreen seems to be a bit sluggish, but I’m really pulling for an Android tablet to make it big. Gizmodo has more.

Nook arrives on Android: My favorite e-reader for my favorite phone. Love. Of course, I’d love it more if the app was actually in the market already. (via Gizmodo)

Ian’s Shoelace Site: What happens when you take a computer programmer, add in a dash of OCD, and mix in an interest in knots? The most comprehensive site on tying your shoelaces in the world. I’m not even making fun of this, it’s incredible. I’m going to be using the Halloween Knot come October, and the Ian Knot may become the way I tie my shoes all the time.

How a Sewing Machine Works: Prepare to be hypnotized. (via Roger Ebert)

Urban Dictionary: Palin: 57 definitions and counting.

“Have you heard about this strange new web service, Chatroulette? It makes webcam connections between random pairs of people with the idea that it’ll spark interesting conversations. I like the idea, but I haven’t tried it yet myself because a) I’ve heard that mainly what you get is pathetic exhibitionist men who aim the camera at their crotch, or b) people who want to chat about sex and flick past anyone who isn’t pretty enough.” -PZ Myers

“I can’t build an installer on a brick.” – Adrian Maggio

I decided to finally acknowledge the “Please Update your WordPress” message that’s been nagging me for the last month or so, and decided to do it during the middle of the day, because I like to live on the edge.

Can I just say, I love how easy it is to upgrade this platform? The full instructions are here, but really, it boils down to “Delete these directories. Copy these files. Be careful about these ones. Visit this page, and click this button.” The whole thing took me less than half an hour, and most of that was waiting for files to transfer.

I’m also rolling up my sleeves and trying to remember PHP, so I can fix the layout of the comments section. You know, now that people are actually commenting. ;-)

Edit

Formatting comments was easier than I had feared. The author name and timestamp – along with a permalink to the comment – now appear at the top of each comment, inside of a light gray header. This should make it easier to distinguish between comments.

I’ve also turned on HTML for the comments, so you can do things like <b>bold</b> and <i>italicize</i> your comments, or add <a href=”http://www.thomas-galvin.com”>links</a>.

Finally, I added a spoiler class to the site’s CSS, so if you want to mention something that might be considered a spoiler, mark it up like this:

<span class=”spoiler”>Darth Vader is Luke’s father!</span>

Which will show up like this (swipe to read):

Darth Vader is Luke’s father!

If you’re a technophile – or just a very, very creep person – you may have heard that some guy created an animatronic sex robot. Well, sorry Pal, but Barnes & Noble has outdone you with its twelve ounces of distilled sex called nook.

I absolutely love this thing, because it takes something I already love – reading – and makes it even better. Like many people, I was initially skeptical of the whole e-reader phenomena, because I thought nothing could replace the feel of a book in your hands, or the smell of the pages.

I was wrong. The nook isn’t cheap or flimsy, and it really feels like you’re holding something when it’s in your hand. The e-ink display is sharp and easy to read, and lacks the eye-straining flicker of a computer screen. The momentary lag when the screen flips to a new page isn’t long enough to be a bother.

I had also worried about losing the ability to feel how far into a book you were, but nook has a nice feature that replaces that physical feel; the bottom of the screen has a little ‘1 / 200′ page indicator, and a progress bar that shows you how much more you have to read.

And the little annoyances that books provide are gone. I don’t have to worry about a book being too unwieldy to hold in one hand, or a too-stiff spine slamming my book closed in the middle of a sentence. I don’t have to debate whether or not its worth trying to cram a five-hundred page tome into my messenger bag. I’ve only had my nook for a couple of hours, but it already feels like the way reading is supposed to be.

I charged my nook by hooking it up to my laptop’s USB port, the same way I charge my phone and my iPod. That hookup also let me set custom screen savers and wall papers, and import a PDF of a story I’m working on, so I can read it on the go.

The touch screen is bright and responsive, and the digital QWERTY seems at least as accurate as the one on my HTC Hero, though I wasn’t trying to double-thumb it, so your mileage may vary.

I only have a couple of minor complaints. One, it wasn’t immediately clear to me how to actually start reading the book I has selected; the little circle inside of a rectangle on the right side of the touchscreen looked like a placeholder to me, not an actual UI element. Two, you have to create a sub-folder under “My Wallpapers” to get nook to recognize your photos. I understand why this is true, but it’s annoying. Finally, the layout of an imported PDF is a little bit wanky – newlines and occasional characters are eaten, which throws off the formatting a little. I’m told that this is true any time you try to convert from PDF to ePub, but it still bothers me.

On the whole, I’m totally sold on nook. This isn’t a surprise, since I played with one in-store before ordering it, and knew what I was in for, but it’s still nice to be validated.

If you aren’t a reader, nook is (obviously) not for you. And if you’re only a casual reader, you can probably give it a pass, too. But if you love books, you’ll love nook.