On November 12th, 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on the second flight of the Space Shuttle Program, a flight which also marks the first re-use of a crewed spacecraft – one of the key goals of the Shuttle Program. STS-2 marked the first use of the Remote Manipulator Arm (the “Canadarm”) , and […]
Following immediately from the Friday the 13th episode, the Nerd looks into the 4 player capable horror classic that is A Nightmare on Elm Street on NES.
I would imagine when most people think of “computer music” these days they still think of the beeps, boops, and blips of the Atari and early computer systems of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Even by 1983, however, music from computers had come quite a long way, and we were just on the verge […]
Ya know, I thought people had better memories than they seem to. This past week on Facebook, I noticed people talking about a little “flower” reaction, alongside the usual heart, laugh, cry, anger, and all that. This, as you probably know by now, is the “Thankful” reaction, which was introduced last year, just a little […]
A decade ago, while browsing the then relatively new website called YouTube, I found a video that discussed something I never thought I would see: A theory that Michael Jackson was involved in the music for the 1994 video game “Sonic The Hedgehog 3.” “What? How? Why? Huh? How did I not learn about this?” […]
It’s Halloween 2006; what better of a time for the Nerd to look at Friday the 13th on the NES!
Here we have a quick, 5 minute film clip from 1966, produced by NASA to provide a status update on the Apollo Program. In 1966, as you may recall, we were finishing up the Gemini Program, and the Saturn V rocket was nearing testing completion for it’s first flight, in late 1967, as a test […]
This video from JPL and NASA shows what the “sound” of the space below the rings of Saturn is like – more correctly, what the particle and magnetic sensors on the craft detect, indicating the vastly different environments outside and inside the ring zones around the gas giant. Again, this is what happens when you […]
Getting back to the Game Players magazine Gametapes, we now hit volume 3, which is actually the 4th tape we’re covering here (5th if you count the “Power Glove” tape we covered many months ago). In this tape, we get hints for the NES games Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest, P.O.W., Strider, Thundercade, and WWF Wrestlemania, […]
I’ve been delayed on sharing this, but hey, better late than never. This video clip from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, as you may have seen it listed before) and shows the path Cassini took over Saturn during the first dive of the Grand Final. The clip speaks for itself, really, showing the cloud tops […]
I took the opportunity this weekend, though not by original intent, to work on other things, away from Xadara: namely the day jobs, and just going out and enjoying some things. I’m well beyond behind on articles, and video making, but that’s fine; the previous few articles have trended quite well, for what they are, […]
Alright, finally we’re getting to something that will feel familiar to everyone: networking! More correctly, the pre-internet computer networking methodology known as BBS’s, via literally dialing a number and putting a phone on the modulator-demodulator – a modem, if you are old enough to remember those kinds of things! This episode shows our friend Billy […]
Yesterday evening, from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket successfully launched 2 large communications satellites into orbit, one for Brazil and another for South Korea. Ariane 5 is the European Space Agencies heavy booster, using 2 solid rocket motors for the bulk of liftoff thrust, and a core engine burning Hydrogen […]
One particular type of scam that’s rather common are ones involving your utilities, mainly electricity, where they claim you owe a large amount on the bill and you have to pay now. Thing is, you can’t pay with your bank card, they only take cash at an undisclosed location or, to make things simpler, you […]
Double Dragon may be a good NES game, but Double Dragon 3: The Sacred Stones is not so much, and that’s what the Nerd is taking a look at in this episode.