NOTE: The following is the script from the "Word on the Tweets" section of the latest weekly Sunday It's Komplicated webcast on the Geekweek Network. These summaries are posted (hopefully) on Mondays.
VELOCI-RAPTURE:
In case you missed it, many fervent Christian believers ran some numbers and figured that yesterday would be the rapture, the day that all faithful souls would be called back to heaven by a loving and logistically savvy god, leaving only the wicked and sinful here on earth. If you're seeing us from a blood-stained den of lustful iniquity and broken human forms, congratulations, and we'll be over to take everything you have shortly. If the math was wrong, either we're all still living the same wacky lives or somebody hasn't figured some things out. We'll hear more of that from our sister site, Geek Religion. (puts hand to ear) I'm hearing that there is no such site, we are losing Geek Religion, and, we'll probably never discuss this again, and there is nothing in my ear. Right.
[Source: Kooks]
PLANETARY:
What do we know about planets? They're round, they can be solid or gaseous and they orbit around stars, right? Right? Maybe not, some astronomers say. These wacky scientists have found ten planets, some as big as Jupiter, wandering around the Milky Way. Either their orbits are super wide … or they don't have orbits. If they orbit stars, the science dudes have an idea what's happening. If not … hell, it's anybody's guess. We don't know any more than these dudes do, but it's super interesting.
[Source: AOL Huffington Post]
GET ME OUT OF HERE:
Load up the colony ships, everybody. Eagle-eyed astronomers have also found two planets orbiting a red dwarf star, 20 light years away … that is inhabitable. Like, for humans. Like, we can get the hell outta this craphole. Write this down: Gliese 581d. That's the name of the planet we're gonna fly to and ruin just like we did this one. Its atmosphere is just right to keep water as a liquid, even though it's six times bigger than our planet. We could totally get there. No word if there's anybody already there, but apparently plans are in place to bring lots of warm blankets and some experimental data garnered from Tuskeegee to share with any new friends we might find.
[Source: The Daily What]
LOKI, SOBEK, ANANSI … YOU KNOW, THE USUAL SUSPECTS:
San Diego Comic-Con is big. The main con floor is a mile across. Panels vary from wolfmen to Glee to all kinds of other weird, non comics related stuff. Pixar vets Scott Morse and Ted Mathot have developed a comics-centric alternative called "Tr!ckster" — that's "trickster" with an exclamation point in place of the letter "i." If SDCC is Sundance, this is Slamdance. Film geeks know what I'm talking about. Anyway, this thing is across the way from Comic-Con, with retail space specializing in creator-owned comics — sorry big two — art galleries, "symposia" for demonstrations and discussions of method, process, theory … this is the nitty gritty people are always trying to get down to. You can check it out at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center or look for a link in our news summary tomorrow. [NOTE: Sorry we're late … drinking, you know]
[Source: The Beat]
MORE THAT MEETS THE EYE:
Write this down: you lived long enough to see this happen. A company called Uno — nobody draw four, it's not the card game — had already developed a self balancing hybrid of a motorcycle, a Segway and a burrito. Now? They're dropping the Uno 3 on us, which will run less around $7,500 and transforms itself from a sort of awkward unicycle thing into an actual motorcycle. It. Transforms. Get that. We lived to see it. Look for this little electric wonder — did I mention that, it's all electric, and small enough to fit into an elevator? — uh, look for it whenever they get it done.
[Source: Geekologie]
BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE:
As kids, we all got crazy ideas. My husband Hannibal did some things with fireworks that'd make PETA cringe. Me? Well, I had my share of experimentation with unwitting victims around me. However, a few weeks ago, police found a three-year-old walking along Pennsylvania's Route 388. The child had just two things with him — a t-shirt that he was wearing and a blowtorch, which he'd used to set fire to his entire neighborhood. Why was a three year old able to operate a blowtorch? How did he get it? Who knows? What we do know is that he torched his family's garage, a neighbor's porch, a broom, a sliding door, a deck, a knob on a septic tank and maybe a collection of Wheeled Warriors DVDs. Everywhere, Black families sat glued to the screen, praying fervently that this kid was, oh, German or something.
[Source: Gizmodo]