Links for May 16th through May 19th

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on May 19, 2009). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Sometime between May 16th and May 19th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Geek Girls Network Interview: Shannon Flowers From Seattle Geekly: "…not all geeks are guys. There is an ever growing female demographic that are just as geeky as their counterparts. Geek girls need to remember that they still have a bit of 'power' in the geek world. Haven't you ever walked into a room full of geek guys and they looked at you like 'OMG it's a GIRL!'? We can still flaunt that as geek girls. If you were ever scared to go into your local comic shop, go now, and ask some questions… there will be TONS of guys to jump at the chance to help you!"
  • Zoo’s Penguins Finally on View: "Each penguin has a distinct personality. Dora, who has a yellow tag on her left wing, is a fussy eater. During frozen fish feedings, she usually hangs back while the keepers give out herring and capelin, only eating when they're putting out silver-sides. Meanwhile, Burkles, a penguin with a white tag on his right wing, likes to help himself. He'll walk behind his keepers and look in their pockets, or try the food bucket. 'He's a bucket diver,' Pardo said. Burkles was less keen on catching live fish. John Samaras, the other penguin keeper, had to nudge him into the water."
  • Fox Abandons Experiment to Air Fewer Ads: "Fox Broadcasting has decided to scrap its year-old strategy of airing fewer ads at higher prices during some TV programmes, after it failed to prevent a revenue shortfall. During the test period, 'Fringe'…ran with around 10 minutes of ads, about four to six minutes less than the typical hour long show. Fox's experiment with airing full seasons of shows with fewer ads was designed to combat ad clutter and stop viewers from fast-forwarding through breaks." That's a shame — I liked the extra runtime and fewer commercials. Can't honestly say I'm surprised this happened, though.
  • It’s Terminal: A Dozen Scenes of Early Office Computing: "Computers… at home, at work and at play we take these technological marvels for granted yet not long ago we did not compute anywhere. The introduction of computers began at the workplace and, chunky and clunky as they might have been, they were a revelation at the time. Let's look back and get digital with early office computers!"
  • Reinventing Star Trek’s VFX: "Kavanagh is eager to make a point about the post-production work at ILM, and to do so, he's showing some of the early cuts. Onscreen, the iconic U.S.S. Enterprise, streamlined, modeled, animated, and rendered at ILM, is voyaging somewhere in the final frontier. And then, as if we were watching a silent movie, a black card with white text interrupts the sequence. It reads: 'Overhead light dutch angle of Enterprise in the middle of massive debris field. Enterprise barreling through it.'"