Category Archives: General Pop Culture

Project Update! Books, Blogs, and Everything Else!

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Howdy, folks! These past few months have been downright crazy, but I wanted to give you all a heads up of what’s been keeping me away from blogging here at Professor Beej as regularly as I want to. Things are finally starting to calm down a little, and I’m able to focus more on specific projects. I thought you might be interested in knowing where the awesomeness is headed.

 

Birthright

Birthright - Final Cover

Last year, you all were awesome enough to crowdfund my first solo novel, Birthright. After a few setbacks in terms of finding an editor (and being more than a little naive when setting the delivery dates), I think we’re right on track. I’ve made my penultimate edits, and I just got back the manuscript from my final 2 polish editors, so I’m pretty confident the ebook will be ready in around 6 weeks, and the print version soon after that. For you Kickstarter backers, keep an eye out–a survey is coming to you soon.

 

Nimbus

Nimbus: A Steampunk Novel - Part 3 Cover

I can’t say I’m not shocked and amazed at the reception we’ve had for Nimbus. People seem to be enjoying our little serial novel experiment, and now that Part One is $0.99 on Amazon, it’s doing even better. Tell your friends.

Part Four is coming along well, and Austin and I hope to have this novel finished and edited within the next 4-5 weeks, too.  The holidays and a few personal issues on both our parts slowed down the release and made us lose some momentum, but we think the end of the book is going to blow your minds. If you haven’t caught up yet, you can snag the first three parts of Nimbus for your Kindle right now.

 

Geek Fitness

In case you didn’t hear, I started a new blog. Because of my phenomenal success at losing weight over the past couple of years–140 pounds!–I think I have a few things to say about the subject of fitness and health. And I mean, when my wife can tell her family that my three favorite things in the world are Star Wars, superheroes, and exercise, I think I need a fitness blog. Don’tcha think?

I’m also going out of my way to learn social media that isn’t Twitter, so I even set up Tumblr and Pinterest pages for Geek Fitness. Not to mention the Facebook page I’m still trying to learn. So if any of those are your chosen network, give me a tweet, a reblog, a repin, or a like.  I’d love for the site to blow up and do well, so share it with your friends, and hit me up if you have any ideas that could make it even better. It’s a month old, and I’m all ears.

 

MMO Gaming

And while it’s not really a project, my non-writing time has been taken up with a fair amount of MMO gaming, too.

I went back to WoW this past week, much to my wife’s chagrin, but I’m also toying around with The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Each game has a lot going for it, and I have to be careful not to spend too much non-productive time online, but it’s nice to have so many quality games out there–especially so many quality games that don’t require subscriptions.

That’s what’s going on in my little corner of the world. What about you? What’s new with you folks?

 

My New Blog – GeekFitness.net

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Two years and the loss of 140 pounds has made fitness a regular and important part of my life. Because of that importance, I’ve launched a new blog: Geek Fitness.

I plan on running my first half-marathon in October of 2013, and I’m going to be using Geek Fitness to track myself, share tips and pitfalls, and overall hold myself accountable as I work toward my goal.

If you’re interested in what it’s like to be a supernerd and a fitness junkie, then Geek Fitness should be right up your alley. Update your bookmarks, subscribe by email, do whatever it is that you do, but keep it in mind.

Oh, and don’t worry. Professor Beej isn’t going anywhere. As much as I love running and fitness and the whole healthy lifestyle thing, there still has to be a place on the gigantic interweb for sci-fi/steampunk author B.J. Keeton, yeah?

So if you’re interested, head on over to Geek Fitness and see How Hogwarts Helped Me Lose 140 pounds.

What Apple’s Anti-Android Lawsuits Mean to Me

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I love Apple. I do. I had a first generation iPhone until the iPhone 4 was released, and I used it for 2 solid years before getting my Samsung Galaxy Note. I own a Macbook Pro, and I have an iPad from work. On top of that, I fully intend to get a new 27-inch iMac once the new models are released later this year.

I’m not a fanboy; I just think Apple makes hellaciously high-quality electronics.

But here’s the thing: I don’t think Apple can do no wrong. They can. In fact, they’re doing a lot of wrong with their current batch of anti-Android lawsuits.

I’d go so far to say that right now, Apple Corporation is looking an awful lot like a huge bag of dicks because of their constant lawsuits against Android phones and tablets.

Last year, when I read about Apple filing for injunctions against Android devices because of alleged patent infringements, I thought it was silly. But they were shot down, and people were still able to buy whatever tablets and phones they wanted.

This year, however, Judge Lucy Koh decided that Apple’s accusations were not baseless. She allowed injunctions to be placed on the Galaxy Nexus and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, forbidding their sales in the United States based on software patent infringement. And do you know what that patent infringement was?

Unified search. Because you could a single search query that brought results from both the internet and the phone’s internal storage.

It’s ridiculous. When alleged patent infringements like multitouch gestures, swipe-to-unlock, and other such base functionalties were rejected, unified search is what gets devices pulled from the shelves?

Seriously?

Google’s working on a fix to be patched into Android, sure, but the whole thing just reeks of a bag of dicks to me.

Like I said, I’m no fanboy. Not for Android and not for Apple, at least.

I’m a fanboy for the end-user. For the consumers. I’m a fanboy for us. 

All Apple is doing with these lawsuits is hurting you and me. If these kinds of lawsuits stick, we can’t go out and decide what phone we want.

The market will be split even further than it is now. The United States will have subpar phones and tablets compared the rest of the world–more so than we already do. The US is already lagging behind in many respects, and if we want the actual gadgets (and not the neutered domestic ones), we’ll have to pay the exorbitant, unsubsidized prices for unlocked international versions.

Because Apple is litigating willy-nilly, and they’re not helping anyone. They’re just being mean. They’re just limiting consumer choices. They’re just throwing their weight around, and I don’t like it.

I don’t like it one bit.

I try to live my life with a simple goal: don’t be an asshole. And unfortunately, that’s the exact opposite of what Apple is doing right now.

They have market-share and brand identity. People know who Apple is now more than they ever have. The iPhone changed the way people use technology and see the world. So there’s no need to act like this.

This type of litigation does nothing but limit consumers.

I’m not going to #boycottApple or anything like that. And I don’t think you should, either. That defeats the purpose. That plays into what they’re doing–limiting the competition. And that’s not good for anybody. If you want an iPhone or iPad, you should be able to go and buy one. If you want a Galaxy Nexus, you should be able to get that, too.

The choice is what’s important. And that’s what Apple is trying to take away.

So what I ask you to do, folks, is research. Please. Look at the available technology before you make a decision on what to buy. Check out the Samsung Galaxy Note or the S3. See the Google Nexus 7. Check out Windows 8. Read about the new iPad and the upcoming iPhone 5. Go demo a Retina Macbook.

Then make your decision. For yourself.

Don’t let a company think they can bully you into thinking that their product is the only one for you.

Don’t let a company tell you there aren’t choices. Because there are. There are hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Don’t let a singe corporation–be it Apple, Samsung, Google, or anyone else–tell you there aren’t.

He’s an Animal, Man

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“Let me tell you about the weirdest dream I ever had… This was a few years ago, When I’d only been Animal Man for a little while . . . I met my maker, literally. He was this skinny intense, Scottish guy who claimed I was just a character that he wrote in a comic book.”

These are some of the opening lines from the number 9 issue of Animal Man (July 2012), written by Jeff Lemire. How fun is that? A semi-breaking of the fourth wall. The “skinny intense Scottish guy” in question being the author of the successful 80s run of the comic book Animal Man, Grant Morrison, who was notorious for breaking the fourth wall. Animal Man is one of DC Universe’s New 52 relaunch titles and despite what you may think of the New 52, storyline alone, Animal Man is well worth the read. I have been trying to convince numerous people of why they need to read Animal Man, and what they are missing out on. (I’m looking at you B.J.) More often than not I am met with the usual arguments of him being “campy” or just a hidden agenda for animal rights.

Unfortunately, they are right much of the time. But it is so hard to convince people that that is where a lot of this comic’s charm comes from. That is when I realized, it’s not that I enjoy PETA-loving sentiment coming from a tights-wearing minor league superhero. I enjoy his family’s reaction to him being a superhero, to the fact he wears tights to rescue cats from trees and stop bank robbers. You see, Animal Man is not just about the superhero secret identity of ex-stuntman, Buddy Baker. It’s also about Ellen Baker, his wife, and his children, Cliff and Maxine. Remarkably, against all odds, Animal Man is not just a hero, he is a successful husband and father.

Notice the keyword there? Successful!

As a father (my son is 19 months old as of this writing), this speaks to me. No. It doesn’t just speak to me, it screams as loud as it can in both of my ears. THAT is why I can’t convince people to read this comic. It’s because I am interested as a parent and none of them are parents (yet). There is a secret little switch in the back of your brain that flips the instant you consider yourself a parent of another human life. It begins this whole series of realizations you never thought of before. It opens the floodgates to all these emotions you didn’t think were possible regarding another person. Somehow, Jeff Lemire is able to stimulate every single neuron mapped to this switch with Animal Man,

As an example, one of my favorite scenes comes from issue number 6 (May 2012). The Baker family is on the run in a Winnebago. They stop off at a little convenience store to get some quick food, while Buddy (Animal Man) has to make a phone call to a local sheriff’s office. While at the store, Cliff, Buddy’s 13 year old son, sees an older teenage girl wearing an Animal Man t-shirt. See, Buddy starred in an indie film, as well, became a B-list pop icon during his animal activist days. Cliff walks up to this girl and very nervously states that Animal Man is his father. Of course this does nothing but cause the girl to laugh at the poor boy for such a ridiculous attempt at hitting on her. Enter dear old dad. Buddy puts his hand on Cliff’s shoulder and says, “There you are! Cliff, we gotta go… That was the Justice League. They need us!” He then grabs Cliff around the waist and uses his powers to absorb flight from birds and they zoom off. Cliff, with a huge grin on his face says, “Thanks dad, that was awesome.”

Of course any of us can appreciate how cool it would be to have a father that could wisp us away and make us look awesome in the eyes of the opposite sex. But that is not where my mind went when I read that scene. My first thought was, “I want to be able to do that for my son.” Proverbially of course. Not literally. It appealed to me as a parent, more than as a child.

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[Guest Post] The Ultimate Guide to the Origins of Cyberpunk Derivatives

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Comic books have appeared in popular cultures since the early thirties and, now more than ever, it seems the increase in popularity of both comics and sci-fi literature is incredible. With an ever increasing economic and global market, and indeed, demand for these products, the rise in the types of literature available is phenomenal.

What started out as simple comic strips within daily newspapers has now become a culture in its own right. The term Cyberpunk was first coined back in 1980 by American author Bruce Bethke who deemed the term appropriate of the emergence of punk teenagers fascinated and inspired by perceptions inherent to the new technological age.

Within the world of fictional hero characters there is a much more complex understanding involved with an ever increasing list of sub-cultures forming from the Cyberpunk umbrella term.

Steampunk

Steampunk is perhaps the most popular cyberpunk concept and focuses within the Victorian period. Steampunk mechanical hacker Jake von Slatt defines it as “essentially the intersection of technology and romance.”

For noobs to the term, it can best be described as a Victorian-esque future world in which steam technology still reigns supreme.

Invented in 1987, the term can be used to describe popular novel The Difference Engine, as well as comic book series and subsequent film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Often also named Neo-Victorianism, it is the combination of the Victorian aesthetic with modern understanding and technologies. While the term didn’t come around until the latter part of the 20th century, the overall aesthetic can actually be traced back to the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

Other standout works of literature from the genre include Tim Powers’ “The Anubis Gates” and “The Difference Engine” by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

 

Teslapunk

 

Teslapunk was first inspired by the technological achievements and visions of inventor, Nikola Tesla. It is fiction inspired by 18th, 19th and early 20th century pioneers of electricity and such devices. Warren Ellis’ series Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island is the perfect example of the sub-genre.

Centering on Captain Swing, an electrically powered Victorian anarcho-air-pirate, Victorian sensibility is emphasized, not with the typical coal and steam, but with electrical energy.

 

Teslapunk coil pistol

Dieselpunk

Dieselpunk concentrates on the period between World War I and World War II. This genre, often also named Decopunk, is the combination of the art and genre influences which came into emergence during that period; such as art deco, film noir, jazz and more streamlined technologies.

Given its names in 2001, Decopunk is essentially a glossier version of Dieselpunk, and is a distinct style of visual art, music, film and engineering. The most well known example is the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Futuristic derivatives focus towards fiction conceived in visions of the future and include Biopunk and Nanopunk.

Biopunk

Biopunk first emerged in the nineties and is based on evolution, mimetics, and futurism and often describes the struggles of the individual. Opposed to Steampunk or Telsapunk, it does not concern itself with information technology, instead it is focused around topics such as biology, DNA, and chromosome manipulation.

Nanopunk

Nanopunk is a much newer genre in comparison to Steampunk and is set within a world where the theoretical promises made by nanotechnology are a reality—both good and bad. With the aspects of the technology still in primary stages, the genre is more concerned with the artistic and physiological impacts. Linda Nagata’s 1995 Tech Heaven examines the healing promises, whereas Michael Crichton’s novel Prey examines more sinister consequences of nanotechnology.

Cyberpunk successfully helps to encompass virtual communities in cyberspace who share and embrace visions of the future; it is both alluring and intriguing. Science fiction author, David Brin (Kiln People, Glory Season) notes how cyberpunk has helped make the sci-fi genre more attractive and profitable for mainstream media. With the genre and its fans ever on the increase, there are already rumblings of the next derivatives emerging: Cornpunk, Puppetpunk, or Zombiepunk as novelist Chuck Wendig suggests. Watch this space!

Image credits: Wikipedia, topgold, Master Magnius, Steampunk Family the von Hedwigs, kitchener.lord, Dominic Elvin

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