Dorkly is wonderful for many things, especially its old-school video game videos (are they machinima? I suppose so!) but this article has a special place in my heart. Now granted, I’ve fought a number of bosses that didn’t make the list that I really think should have (I’m looking at you I-no, Guilty Gear XX) but it’s still a good list regardless. Anyone who’s a big fan of videogames will proabably agree with at least some of them.

Frankly, I think M. Bison is a classic example of what we like to call the “rubberband AI,” meaning a first fight that’s so ridiculously easy that anyone can handle it, but is programmed only to lure you into a false sense of thinking that the fight will be at all reasonable in the long run. He then – like every boss like him – turns around and behaves impossibly good, reading the buttons you’re pressing to determine what you’re about to do and counter/avoid it, and does impossible amounts of damage on every hit.

Well, that’s my opinion anyway – who do you think should have been on the list that didn’t make it?

[ Dorkly :: 7 of The Cheapest Boss Fights in Videogame History ]

If you were a fan of Reading Rainbow as a child, and miss having the opportunity to share it with your kids or with a new generation of young readers, you’re not alone. When Reading Rainbow officially stopped airing, LeVar Burton noted on Twitter that this wouldn’t be the end of the show (you can follow him, if you don’t already at @levarburton) and now he’s made good on the promise.

LeVar is rebooting the series as an iPad app and other tech-based resources, called RRKidz, along with a wealth of companion content that will get to young readers right where they are these days: on mobile devices like tablets. From an excellent article at FastCompany about this:

LeVar Burton, a children’s literacy advocate and a former star of Star Trek: The Next Generation, plans to make an ambitious comeback, giving the once-loved Reading Rainbow brand a 21st-century upgrade. Burton’s for-profit venture, RRKidz, plans to launch an educational iPad app that lets children explore topics of interest–such as, say space–in a multimedia-rich environment, with voice-over-enhanced children’s books, familiar videos of Burton at real-life places (like NASA), and, of course, games. Burton tells Fast Company he’s on a mission to “get kids hooked on books,” and says his company is “going to where kids are today; those devices that they love to spend time on.”

From the way that FastCompany explains it, this is just the beginning – the iPad app is only going to be one component in what will hopefully be a rich and long-lived educational venture, and with LeVar Burton behind it, I can’t see how it’ll be anything but wonderful.

[ Fast Company :: Reading Rainbow: The Next Generation ]

The world getting you down? Heartache? Money trouble? Job stressing you out?

Try this button. Submitted without further comment.

[ The Magic Button ]

(image snapped from Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus)

While I knew many people had difficulty understanding and accepting scientific papers as a basis for discussion and argument (mostly because whenever facts contradict opinion, the people on the wrong side of the facts take issue with them,) I didn’t know that some people had difficulty telling solid facts from conjecture, and that people had that much difficulty actually finding studies pertinent to the things they’re researching or interested in.

To that end, this piece from Scientific American about how to find and tell good information from bad information on the Internet is one of those “bookmarkable” stories – the kind you send to people when you find that their entire argument rests on horribly outdated or disproven information. They start off with this gem, and move on to some tips on how to find good information, corroborate it, and interpret it:

The internet empowers us to educate ourselves and make more informed choices and decisions without leaving our couches. But if we believe everything we find on the internet, we are likely to wind up making some very poor decisions. In this new digital information age, how do we keep from being misinformed? As a skeptical environmental research scientist and educator I have picked up a few tricks that anyone can use to find and select high-quality information from the internet.

One of my favorites is how to find and use scientific papers (and not to be afraid of scientific papers when you find them) and of course, to be careful which web sites you trust. The whole piece is worth a read, but admittedly, many of us are already familiar with these tips:

[ Scientific American :: Finding Good Information on The Internet ]

(photo by Seth Anderson)

I worked in computer support for a long time – long enough that I thought that I may not do anything else, so I completely understand how this is. I’ve had friends – even long after I worked in support and wound up working in more enterprise-type administrative technology roles – still ask me for help fixing their busted computer, cleaning out spyware and viruses, and generally speeding it up. So yeah, I know how this list is.

At the same time, the list is more hyperbole than actual truth, but if I said there’s no truth to it whatsoever, I’d be lying. After all, doing things like uninstalling the protective programs that your “computer savvy” friend installed for you, or running off and doing things that your computer savvy friend specifically asked you not to do are generally Bad Ideas. Then – none of you reading this would ever do such a thing if you had someone look at your computer for you, right?

[ Cracked :: 6 Reasons The Guy Who's Fixing Your Computer Hates You ]

Submitted without comment, aside from that it should be required viewing prior to commenting, writing, or otherwise interacting on the internet.

If you have tender eyes or ears or are easily offended, scroll on by now. I would sincerely hope you don’t though, otherwise you might miss one of the most ingenious and entertaining USB flash drives to hit the market in recent years. After all, the Duet is an 8GB flash drive, but it’s also something very very different: a vibrating…personal health appliance designed to help ladies relax, if you catch my drift.

No?

Okay, it’s a flash drive plus vibrator. Yes, it’s a sex toy on one end and stores your most personal data on the other. Talk about a very very personal accessory. Here’s what Unplggd had to say on the matter, along with the specs on the Duet:

Here’s the specs on the Crave Duet:

• Phthalate-free & body-safe silicone
• USB rechargeable
• Completely waterproof
• Virtually silent
• 4 vibration modes & 5 power levels

• Up to 4 hours of continuous use

• Genuine leather pouch included

• 4.55” x 1.08” x 0.48” (11.6 x 2.7 x 1.23 cm)

There’s even the option for 8GB flash storage (perhaps to store appropriate media to help along related activities?) and a couple other luxe gold detail finishing, if you’re into a more fanciful finish to your lil’ friend. As one friend put it upon seeing these, “they’d make awesome bachelorette party favors!”

The Duet is another one of those products that’s looking for interest and people who are interested in putting their money into the project before they actually go forth and start mass producing.

[ CKIE :: Duet ]

More news I’ve been sitting on for a while but that’s still incredible is the story of the habitable – by all indication anyway – exo-Earth orbiting a binary star system well over 40 light years away. As noted at Technology Review, it’s not that astronomers are having a difficult time finding habitable exo-Earths: there are definitely plenty out there and we’re finding more and more thanks to the launch of the Kepler probe and its finely tuned eyes.

In fact, so many new candidates have appeared that a lot of people have already moved on to the next thing in the news cycle, completely forgetting that we’re on the brink of discovering planets that aren’t just potentially habitable to life like ours, but that may also have their own forms of life already on them.

In this case, 55 Cancri f, shown above, is in the constellation Cancer and shows signs of being quite comfortable to human life even though it orbits a binary star system. When I was a wee astrophysicist as an undergrad, I learned that binary star systems are entirely more common than you might think (after all, we do tend to make the assumption that our own star system is the norm.)

Here’s what Technology Review had to say:

Today, we can add another strange planet to the list: 55 Cancri f, one of five planets known to orbit an orange dwarf star some 40 light years away in the constellation of Cancer.

Kaspar von Braun at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and a few pals have measured its orbit accurately for the first time. These guys are able to confirm that 55 Cancri f is a genuine candidate to support liquid water.

They say that although this planet’s orbit is much more elliptical than Earth’s, it still spends most of its time (74 per cent) in the habitable zone.

Furthermore, 55 Cancri f is quite like Earth in some ways. Its year is about the same length as ours. And with moderate greenhouse warming, it could support liquid water all year round.
But unlike Earth, its mass is about the same as Neptune’s (although it doesn’t seem to have a large gaseous atmosphere).

That’s incredible: a Neptune-sized planet that could be completely habitable and has two suns? Incredible.

[ Technology Review :: Astronomers Discover Habitable ExoEarth Orbiting Binary Star ]

I bookmarked this a while ago partially in order to make it easier to come back to when I wanted something to decorate the walls of my new place, but also because I wanted to be able to share these beautifully geeky posters. If you want your houseguests to know you’re an Android fan, or that you’ve been using a Mac since the Classic days, or that you’re an old school gamer, these posters are for you, and most of them are easily available as prints and copies that are pretty enough for frames and definitely attractive enough to earn a spot on your walls.

The ones above are some of those old school video game posters, but I’m also just as much a fan of the Fail Whale, the Google Doodles, and just about any of The Oatmeal’s prints.

[ Mashable :: 20+ Great Geeky Posters For Your Office ]

(Photo courtesy of µµ.)

Over at ExtremeTech a few weeks back, I penned a column that I’m actually very proud of – essentially a layman’s guide to what the Higgs Boson is and why it’s important to scientific discovery and physicists everywhere. After all, we’re spending a lot of time looking for it, it’s just as well that someone took the time to explain to people what it is and why it’s important beyond calling it “the God particle,” which in itself has little to no connotation.

I won’t try to recap that post here, I just strongly suggest you head over to take a look, but this video is also an excellent primer, one that I thought was good enough that it should be included in the post itself.

[ ExtremeTech :: What Is The Higgs Boson and Why Is It Important to Science? ]