I’m starting graduate school and the horror of textbook prices are draining valuable video game money (and playtime). Several stories have commented on the digital future of textbooks which looks bleak.  Publishers have a loyal clientele in students who must buy overpriced books to keep up in class. Universities and professors are complacent, keeping this archaic system going instead of looking for alternatives.

Wired Campus writes about surveyed students demands for digital textbooks, from costing less than the printed versions and allowing them to be printed.  Many digital textbooks cost the same as their print versions, but limit what you can print and expire after 180 days (with no resale value like the book).

The problem is textbook publishers have little incentive to innovate.  Students spend the money, but only universities and professors can sway what books get assigned (and thus sold).  As long as universities keep assigning expensive textbooks, publishers will continue to gouge students without consequence.

Piracy is starting to nip at the textbook market, but students, like me, who like printed versions find piracy a last resort. Pirate Bay and Textbook Torrents offer surprisingly large supplies of required texts that have only recently caught the eye of publishers.  Instead of recognizing an opportunity, textbook publishers are pushing digital supplements to their textbooks, requiring expensive subscriptions to supplement “losses” to piracy.

Textbooks could thrive in the digital space. Some writers and professors are experimenting with free, open-source e-textbooks to letting students write their own textbook on Wikibooks.  To encourage publishers to conduct their own experiments, professors and universities must unite to represent their students. Students can’t do anything (except file-share) as long as professors assign expensive textbooks.  Schools should screen books for pricing and reward publishers that sell books at fair prices.

RoboCop clanked onto movie screens in 1987 with violence and cultural commentary and a robot cop for the lead. Detroit police officer Alex Murphy gets wounded in the line of duty, and to save his life, his face and brain are built into a robotic crime fighting machine who only wants to love. The satirical cultural commentary took a back seat among fans to the incredible action sequences, culminating in a slug-fest with the chicken-legged monster machine ED-209.  The franchise turned into a forced trilogy (stories by comic legend Frank Miller) with a relaunch film scheduled for 2010.  RoboCop remains an iconic hero for 80s action fans to cherish.

So you think comics are for kids? Well, this little piece of work tells of the creator’s father living through the Holocaust. Told using animals, Maus relates to the creative success of George Orwell’s Animal Farm as a social commentary keeping the audience at a distance. By winning the Pulitzer, comics earned a sense of credibility that rarely comes around. The rebuttal comic fans give to nay-sayers usually includes a reference to the classic work. Maus proves comics aren’t just about muscular men in tights. They are a powerful medium deserving of wider critical acclaim.

With dreams of pet robots to do our homework and chores, some rules need to be put in place.  Isaac Asimov recognized this when he published he treatise, “I, Robot”, outlining the Three Laws of Robotics.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

In 1950, I, Robot collected several of Asimov’s short written during the previous decade’s stories influencing science fiction and reality.  Books and films about robots often adopt the Laws of Robotics in some way, usually watching how those laws don’t get followed and mayhem ensues.  In the real world, Asimov’s laws contribute the arguments about the threat vs. benefit of artificial intelligence, fearing that one day computers could be smart enough to learn on their own and conquer the world.  Or maybe a company would just name themselves after the robot manufacturer in the book, U.S. Robotics.  How original.

Retro gaming can be fun. It’s even better when it’s free and convenient. Programmers have taken to reverse-engineering the software that makes video game consoles work. These emulators allow gamers to play games from various systems on their computer or on other consoles. Bloodlust Software released one of the earliest and most popular emulators, NESticle, in 1997 replicating the NES experience for the PC. Gamers download ROM images (read-only memory) to play on the emulators. Hundreds of emulators have been developed for almost every gaming system created by amateur developers and some commercial. The complexity with making emulators work limits the popularity, but allows the devoted not only strolls down memory lane, but the chance to even improve the experience with enhanced graphics and online gameplay for systems that never had the pleasure. Thank you technology.

It took a week and a half, but I’ve got my stuff and finally got internet hooked up.  I’ll slowly get back into the blogging routine, in between unpacking and setting up my new life in Chicago.

I bought a new TV (52″ Sony Bravia), got addicted to Prison Break, and beat Final Fantasy III on the DS.

I’ll be playing catch up on Geek-Out Moments for a while.  I’ll be back-dating them so if you’re eager not to miss one, make sure you subscribe to my feed.

Science fiction helps put modern day issues in perspective. But sometimes, science fiction goes too far. Science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard wanted to be more Oprah than Asimov, so he published his self-help book Dianetics. Publishers avoided this emotionally stifled gem, so Hubbard had it published in the authoritative Astounding Science Fiction magazine. That is where Scientology got its start. And it just got funnier from there.

Orson Welles aired his War of the Worlds radio drama as a 1938 Halloween special on the Mercury Theatre on the Air show. Delivered like a news program in the days before World War II, some people believed the drama was real, some even leaving their homes and claiming to smell toxic gas and seeing flashing lights in the distance. History and overly dramatic news reports helped exaggerate the panic from the War of the Worlds drama, but the fallout remains. Fictional programs on radio from then on regularly had to be interrupted with the station’s call letters showing the events weren’t real. This will only last until the real Martians come to take us over.

Lost landed in our hearts and minds with a crash. The shocking premiere unleashed a treasure trove of mysteries inspiring a whole new form of addictive, serialized television. Lost has been unapologetically obtuse, complex, and insulting to anyone who doesn’t study the show’s mythology 24/7 and yet and turned its eccentricities into endearing quirks that only make the show more addictive and lovable. The complex characters, rich mysteries, and detailed science, from the numbers to the flashbacks, every second of Lost is pop culture gold to be over analyzed, memorized, and cherished.

Complete with an astonishing $60 million opening weekend, the blockbuster made a success of Marvel’s flagship franchise while cementing the name of comic books in Hollywood’s mind. After a long line of flops like Mystery Men and the atrocious Marvel films from the late 80’s, X-Men became the first classic comic film based on a well known property. Successes like Blade, Men in Black, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films had little association with the comics, but X-Men couldn’t escape its predecessor. Because of the film’s success, numerous comic movies went on the fast track. Spider-Man went on to become the fifth highest grossing film in history while Daredevil, X-Men 2, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the Hulk will be released before July 2003. In addition, hundreds of other comic book films are in the works waiting to capitalize on the millions of movie goers who proved their loyalty with the X-Men.