Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
The Quiet War is science fiction novel after the Earth has gone through the Overturn — a catastrophic climate event brought about by global warming. A new world order, based around conservative green values, emerges and attempts to restore the planet. Meanwhile, humanity has spread to the Moon, Mars and the outer planets. These outer colonies … Read more
Baseball is very much in the air in ITS. The “catch crew” is eager for the snow on the Quad to melt so we can get back to our occasional games of catch, and we’re eager for the first pitch to be thrown at Coca-Cola Park later this spring.
Courtney Bentley gave me a heads up about this one: Cars 2 character turn arounds. These are 3D models of the major characters from Cars 2, which you are all but destined to see if you, like me, have a four-year-old in the house. I took my daughter to see Cars in the theater when … Read more
With the new year I decided to undertake a new project: Picture a Day. The goal is to take one photograph a day and then publish them to a public repository — in my case that’s Flickr and Facebook. I have to admit I’ve been a little hit or miss in my photo taking — … Read more
Everyone hates those boring, black-text-on-white-background PowerPoint presentations whose talking points are more like mini-dissertations. This Google Docs presentation stomps those kinds of basic, excruciatingly boring slideshows into oblivion. It’s amazing to think that everything — including the animations — was done through a Google Doc. Engadget: Google Docs presentation makes PowerPoint weep, beg for mercy
MAKE Magazine’s online blog has a great “how-to” post about handcrafting Tron-inspired messenger bags, complete with glowing neon stripes. Seems like a great project for the holiday break…
Last week my wife surprised me with a Tron-inspired birthday party (my birthday’s December 17, the same day that Tron: Legacy was released). As part of that, she asked the good folks at Cupcake Ladies to create Tron cup cakes. Which they did. The photo at left was taken by my friend and coworker Jason … Read more
The Evolutionary Void is the third in Peter F. Hamilton’s Void series. The series takes place few hundred years after the events of Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained. In it, the Greater Commonwealth — an expansive human civilization that’s spread through much of the galaxy — and its Artificial Intelligence allies find themselves attempting to deal with a faction of humanity hellbent on evolving the species into “post-physical existence” … whether the rest of us want it or not.
Advice for geek parents on when to introduce kids to Star Wars, and how to tackle the delicate issues of Luke Skywalker’s father, the correct order to watch the movies, and the heresy of the special editions.