Career News 24/7: Geekosystem Newsletter - Tweeter Beware, You're in For a Scare: R.L. Stine Tweets Horror Story

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Geekosystem Newsletter - Tweeter Beware, You're in For a Scare: R.L. Stine Tweets Horror Story

	Tweeter Beware, You're in For a Scare: R.L. Stine Tweets Horror Story R.L. Stine is probably best known for his young adult horror series Goosebumps, which graced the tissue-paper thin pages of Scholastic book order forms for most of the 1990s and early 2000s. What you may not know is that Stine is an avid Twitter user, and last week took the opportunity to tweet out an entire horror story, 140 characters at a time. It's no Welcome to Dead House, but it's a reminder that Stine is a master of brevity in storytelling. It also features a haunted kitchen, so there's that. Read More »
	SmartGuard iPhone Case Lets You Make Calls, Mace People For those who have been waiting since the debut of the iPhone to weaponize it, your time has come. Piexon, the makers of fine pepper spray related products, has developed the SmartGuard, a tube of mace attached to an iPhone case. The device's creators reason that if everyone is carrying a smartphone these days, it makes perfect sense to attach a pressurized nozzle of irritant to it. That way, you'll never leave home without your pepper spray. Read More »
	U.K. High Court Has Allowed Court Summons To Be Served Via Facebook Whether you like it or not, social networks are weaseling their way further into the very fabric of our everyday life. That being the case, you might not be surprised that they're working their way further into the legal system. For instance, a High Court judge in the U.K. has recently ruled that you can totally serve court summons via Facebook since some people out there seem to be impossible to reach any other way. Yes, we've come to that. Read More »
	Scientists Uncover 300 Million Year-Old Forest Preserved Under Volcanic Ash About 298 million years ago near the modern day city of Wuda, China, a volcano erupted. Over the course of several days it rained down volcanic ash with such ferocity that branches were torn from plants and enormous trees were felled in a nearby forest. The forest plants were completely buried in a layer of thick ash, and was in turn buried over eons of new growth. Now, scientists have unearthed this lost forest, giving them a glimpse into a long forgotten time. Read More »
	Mini ED-209 Robocop Made From Recycled Metal is Cute Welded to Fearsome I am nothing if not a fan of mechs, and I am stoked to say that it is a very, very good year for mechs. As if it wasn't good enough already (it is), this mini ED-209 Robocop junkbot is just gravy. A miniscule version of its sophisticated namesake, the mini ED-209 was constructed by TGNsmith out of recycled materials like an old computer case and some spent propane tanks welded together with some love and ingenuity. The mini ED-209 junkbot actually has a big brother junkbot that weighs over 300 pounds, but this little guy has his own distinct characteristic: He's for sale. Read More »
	Do You Want to Drink Duff Beer? Technically, You Can For Homer Simpson, there is only one beer: Duff. However, Matt Groening is on the record as saying that he will never allow an officially licensed Duff beer on the grounds that it will encourage underage drinking. That surprisingly thoughtful stance has prevented an official cash-in, but that hasn't stopped some breweries from either trying to push counterfeit Duff, or just coincidentally producing a beer with the same name. If you're keen to drink Duff, real Duff beer, then these are the best you can get. Read More »
	Real-Life GoldenEye 64 Has Graphics That Are a Little Too Realistic I'm all for realistic graphics, but this fan-made GoldenEye 64 mod -- which is totally an actual GoldenEye 64 mod, for sure -- takes it too far. It's like it comes out of one uncanny valley and into the next. Maybe they should have but a little of that effort into improving Natalya's AI instead of making sure the bad guys look like real people as they awkwardly crumble. I think I'll just go play GoldenEye: Rogue Agent; that was way better than GoldenEye 64 anyways. I mean, at least it had an actual golden eye, right? Read More »
	The Bodyguard Pulled From Netflix as Rightsholder Makes Bid to Capitalize On Whitney Houston's Death Remember how the price of Whitney Houston's "The Ultimate Collection" nearly doubled within the hour following her death? Remember how it got knocked back down and there was just the slightest chance that it could have been unrelated to price-gouging since Sony gave a vaugely plausible story? Now, The Bodyguard, a film in which Houston starred, has been yanked off Netflix streaming. Why? Because the rightsholder (which is most likely Warner Bros.) saw that "there was an opportunity to make really a very large amount of money on the DVD sales of her movies." No two ways about it. Read More »
	Geekolinks: 2/20 Double Fine surpasses $2 million on their Kickstarter (Kickstarter) Found art on Google Street View (9-eyes) Can you identify this UAV flying over Uzbekistan? (Flightglobal) The days on which Windows will die (TechCrunch) Maddie the coonhound, standing on things (BuzzFeed) Iranian engineer claims downed U.S. drone was hijacked (CS Monitor) 9 sites that will instantly lift your mood (GeekSugar) (the Internet is weird, guys) Read More »
	Want to Win a Free T-Shirt of Your Choice? Make a Caption for This Picture You guys like shirts, right? You know, that thing you drape over the back of your chair because you only wore it for four hours that day and really can't warrant throwing it in the laundry already? But then you just leave it draped over your chair for days and keep leaning against it because you use your chair quite frequently, and the it eventually gets wrinkled and dirty enough to the point where you just decide to throw it in the laundry anyway? You want a free one? T-shirts.com was awesome enough to provide us with five t-shirt giveaways, just for you! All you have to do is create a caption for the above picture and drop it into the comment section of this post, and we'll choose the winner, judging the caption on a combination of creativity and relevance to the picture. Head on past the break for more details, and to leave us your own caption for a chance to win a free shirt. They have some nice shirts over there, including these superhero t-shirts, so you should take the minute and try your hand at a caption. Read More »
	U.K. Court Rules The Pirate Bay Encourages Copyright Infringement, Takes One Step Closer To Blocking It The Pirate Bay has been sailing on some stormy seas lately, and things don't look to be getting any better. U.K. high court recently ruled that the site "authorizes" and encourages users to infringe on copyrights as opposed to merely "enabling" or "assisting," a distinction which puts The Pirate Bay in the position of being decidedly illegal in the U.K.. That being the case, it's possible that the site could be blocked outright by ISPs; they wouldn't be the first. Read More »
	Completely Awesome Posthumous Party Planned for Douglas Adams' 60th Birthday Douglas Adams, the author of that staple of sci-fi satire The Hithhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, died 11 years ago at the tender age of 49. For me, and likely for others, it was the first time that an icon of mine died. To celebrate his life and what would be his 60th birthday, his friends and family are putting together an enormous party featuring comedy, Adams' college plays, and music. If you happen to be in London on March 11 at 5:00 P.M., you can take part in this most exciting of revelries. Read More »
	The Internet Has Everything, Including Bikini Models With Dinosaurs Pretty much anything can happen on the Internet, so a gallery of bikini models posing with dinosaur paraphernalia probably isn't completely out of left field, but that doesn't make it any less strange. But let's walk it back a little, shall we? Don Glut is a writer, actor, director, and amateur paleontologist. I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't heard the name, but he was a writer for things like "Dink, The Little Dinosaur," penned the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back, and produced a documentary called Dinosaur Movies. Clearly he's a man of many talents, with a thing for dinosaurs. Read More »