It’s only a matter of time now. This week on Jeopardy! a special event took place as Watson, a sophisticated computer system from IBM, faced off against Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter who are generally regarded as the greatest human Jeopardy! players. This is a distinction we need to make now as Watson pretty much completely trounced them.

Despite his monolithic appearance when seen from the front Watson is actually conveniently placed monitor. He’s actually a huge computer system on state of the art IBM hardware. We know this of course because this event was basically a huge advertisement for IBM. They clearly put a good deal of work to program this guy so I guess that was the trade off for all the viewers this event pulled in.

Watson does some crazy algorithms to determine the most likely answer and the probabilities are then shown on screen. If the chance of the answer being right is above his threshold, he buzzes in, with great speed, and shoots and answer. But he’s not always right!

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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

Grand Theft Auto is a 1977 film that marked former child actor Ron Howard’s debut as a director. Howard stepped in the role of a young man who runs away with his girlfriend when her rich and overprotective father tries to hook her up with a rich young socialite. The Grand Theft Auto part of the film comes into play when the girlfriend steals her father’s Rolls-Royce, as the two have their sights set on a Vegas wedding. The socialite puts a bounty on his head, and hi-jinks ensue.

Grand Theft Auto is no laughing matter however. In 2005 alone, there were approximately 1.2 million reported cases of motor vehicle theft, costing an estimated $7.6 billion in property losses. As you can see, it is a very serious crime in any state, along with most of the civilized world. Offenders can expected to spend up to 15 years or more in prison, depending on the severity of the crime.

The GTA I’m referring to is neither a Ron Howard flick or the real life crime. It is a game franchise created by DMA Designs under the direction of Lemmings creator David Jones. The games cast players in the shoes of criminals, and as the title suggests, they must commit Grand Theft Auto (along with other crimes) to get ahead. The series has spanned 10 separate installments and 4 expansion packs. Its formula of open-world gaming and criminal mayhem has earned the franchise a special place on the shelves of many a gamer. Yet, GTA remains one of the most controversial franchises in gaming, and not just for its adult content.
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Hasbro just released the official images of the items revealed during their press event. Among them was the big announcement of a brand new Skystriker jet. Further they announced that this year’s San Diego Comic Con exclusive would be a repainted version of this jet to look like Starscream with Cobra Commander as the pilot who will carry a gun that is Megatron in gun mode. Its kind of a big deal.

I thought this image needed its own post. And it does.

Please, please, please don’t let there be another Sgt. Slaughter massacre on HasbroToyShop this year.

The fight may have been finished back in 2007 with Halo 3, but thankfully there are still plenty of stories to tell about the Halo universe. One of them is the tale of a group of Orbital Drop Squad Troopers (or Helljumpers as they are nicknamed, and for good reason) and the losing battle they fought in the ill-fated African city of New Mombasa in the period between Halo 2 and Halo 3. You take control of one of these soldiers as you explore the city in an attempt to find out what’s going on. Originally conceived as a downloadable add-on (and originally slated to be called Halo 3: Recon), so much work was put into the story, setting, and characters, that Bungie ended up releasing the game as a standalone 2-disc package available at full retail price. The first disc contains the campaign (which can be played with up to 4 players) and a new mode called firefight where you fight off waves of covenant soldiers similar to Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. The second disc contains every map released for Halo 3, including those released on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The game also includes the Forge map editor for creating your own worlds.

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During the 16-bit days, it seemed that alongside the Sega vs Nintendo console awards, there was another video game war brewing as well. Ocean was competed directly with Sony Imagesoft and Acclaim to see who could make the worst movie tie-in video game. Or so it would seem that way, as all three companies dumped crap after crap after crap on our consoles with each popular or semi-popular sci-fi and action flick that hit theaters. Every once in a while, there was a gem, like Sony Imagesoft’s Hook, or at least something resembling a gem, like Acclaim’s Stargate. Sadly, most of the product that the three companies collectively produced was only a few steps above of Atari’s “classic” E.T. game. One of the missteps was Ocean’s Lethal Weapon. In this SNES game, you take the role of super-deformed cartoon hunchbacks vaguely resembling Danny Glover and Mel Gibson (before he became an anti-Semite douchebag) as you ice skate through nondescript locations and battling generic looking enemies, all the while overcoming your inability to fire while crouching. Released around the time of the Lethal Weapon 3 movie, video games based on Lethal Weapon also hit the NES, Game Boy, Amiga, and other systems, but this Maximum Letdown focuses on the SNES game. Although I’m sure the other systems have an equally crappy (or worse) Lethal Weapon video game.
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Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.

You’re a badass, right? You run around and foil evil schemes of your enemy, kick the asses of his henchmen, and save all the innocents that happen to get cross in the crossfire. You do this with speed, style, and cunning.

But what’s this? Your enemy has unleashed his Ultimate Creation upon you and the hapless others around you. It renders your speed and style nearly useless and quadruples the danger-factor in your quest, drastically cutting down your chances of winning the day or even coming out of it alive. You need more than just style and speed, now. You need POWER.

You’re Sonic the Hedgehog and you need to go Super. How do you do this? With the goddamn Chaos Emeralds, that’s how.
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The Dismemberment Plan – “The City”

The Dismemberment Plan haven’t toured in 7 years. I’d seen them a dozen times over in their native DC, and the last time I saw them onstage it was in Milwaukee in 2003.

Last Night they appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, making their live TV debut, and this weekend they’ll storm DC again with shows at The Black Cat and The 930 Club.

They’re releasing their album Emergency & I on vinyl LP for the first time. If you don’t have a record player, you can still buy the MP3s too.

The D-Plan also stuck around after the show for another song, which is available online only– [Read the rest of this entry…]

We’ve known for a while that Tom Hardy would be in the next Batman flick, but we didn’t know who he would be. Speculation fuleed by plot rumors put him as Dr Hugo Strange, but an official press release from Warner Bros has eliminated rumors and confirmed another cast member.

Tom Hardy will be Bane, a Batman villain notorious for breaking the caped crusader’s back during the Knightfall plot in the mid-90s. Bane’s power is derived from a super potent steroid-like substance called Venom that amplifies his musculature.

Additionally, Anne Hathaway has been cast as Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman. A very popular character for decades in the Batman mythos as both a villain and a hero, its unknown what role she will play in Nolan universe. One thing is for sure: it will likely be better than Halle Berry’s attempt.

Read the full press release:
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