It took another five years since the last season premiered, but the Venture Bros. finally released a new chapter, this time in the form of a direct-to-digital movie. The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart has actually been available in digital and Blu-ray formats since late July, but I just heard about it. The movie aired on Adult Swim last weekend and is currently featured on the Max streaming service.

I have not watched the movie yet, so I cannot provide any opinion on it. But I will add this to my ever-growing queue of television to watch, and probably prioritize it in the near future.

The Wired YouTube channel has a series where guests answer questions from Twitter about their profession. One of their most recent guests is the legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky, answering animation questions.

The video is an interesting and entertaining 15 minutes where Genndy explains some basic animation concepts, shares his enthusiasm about animation, and even does some quick off-the-cuff drawings to illustrate some points.

In addition to mentioning some of his past projects, such as Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Primal, there is also a peek at a few storyboard thumbnails from his newest animation, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal.

His new series started airing last week on Adult Swim (Cartoon Network). I have not had a chance to watch the episodes yet, but they are definitely on my list to watch very soon!

Adult Swim still has yet to announce the premiere date for season 6 of Rick and Morty, but they released some brand new bonus content on their YouTube channel.

Today, Adult Swim premiered the short digital series, Vindicators 2: Last Stand Between Earth and Doom. The ten episodes are a prequel about the superhero team The Vindicators, introduced in episode 4 of season 3, “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender”.

Each episode is only two or three minutes, so catching up on the back-story of the Vindicators takes about as much time as a full episode of Rick and Morty. Enjoy!

Season 5 of Samurai Jack has an official air date: March 11! And Adult Swim released a new trailer:

Enjoy!

There is a proposal for a new Lego set for The Iron Giant, which already has over 5000 supporters. If it gets enough supporters and is approved by Lego, you could buy a Lego set that includes:

• Iron Giant, with changeable eyes, weaponry, and an attachable S chest plate
• Hogarth Hughes, with the Iron Giant’s bolt
• Annie Hughes, with a coffee pot
• Kent Mansley, with a fedora
• Dean McCoppin, with a coffee cup

The entire set consists of approximately 2023 pieces. Who wouldn’t want their very own giant robot? Add your support today!

DC is releasing a new animated Batman movie, Batman: The Killing Joke. It is an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland.

I am excited about this movie because of the talent involved. The movie is co-directed by Bruce Timm, who co-created and produced Batman: The Animated Series.  And it features the voice talents of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, the quintessential Batman and Joker voices.

Parents should be warned, however, that this movie is not appropriate for children. It is rated R by the MPAA and Mark Hamill warns that “it’s really mean and nasty.”

The movie will be released on home video on August 2, but it will also have a limited theatrical release for one day on July 25. You should check to see if it is playing at a theater near you!

I just finished reading Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, which was a very enjoyable experience. This science fiction book, set in the year 2044, follows the main character’s adventures through a virtual universe as he competes in a contest that would make the winner one of the most powerful people in the world.

Ready Player One was especially fun to read because the entire book is packed with nostalgic references to the 1980s (and other recent decades). They range from pop culture icons like Back to the Future and Dungeons and Dragons to obscure trivia that I never heard of before. And since the references are integral to the plot line, it does not come off as gratuitous or unnecessary.

Right after I finished the book I thought, “I’d be surprised if this doesn’t become a movie.” Not only have the rights already been purchased, but Steven Spielberg is signed on to be the director, some of the cast have been announced, production should have already started, and a release date has been set (March 30, 2018).

If you have not already read this book, I highly recommend reading it before the movie comes out!

Enjoy a funny short film with Paul Rudd playing quantum chess against Stephen Hawking — for the fate of the future! The film premiered at Caltech’s “One Entangled Evening” event and features some excellent cameos.

Also, today I learned that quantum chess is a real game that adds concepts like uncertainty, superposition, and entanglement to the gameplay.

I have become increasingly frustrated with the latest advertising trend on the Internet:  hover ads. These are similar to pop-up ads, except that they are fully rendered within the website you are viewing and prevent you from reading or using the website until you dismiss the ad.

At first, a lot of webpages started using this functionality to solicit requests for feedback, usually through third-party survey companies. Then, sites created similar pop-ups to ask you to sign up for their newsletters or beg for donations through PayPal or Kickstarter. Sites then added logic to wait until you have scrolled down to a later point in the article before popping up the request, to ensure that you are fully engaged in the reading material (and therefore even more annoyed at the interruption). And now third-party advertising has joined the game, preventing you from reading content on a page until you scan the advertisement enough to figure out where the “close” button is hidden.

This type of tactic is straight from Advertising 101: the more eyeballs you get on the ad (or the more times you directly ask for money/email/survey), the more successful conversions you will get. And content publishers that use these tactics will argue that advertising revenue keeps content on the Internet free. If the content publisher was unable to make money from advertising, then the content would either disappear or move behind a paywall (or so the argument goes). Continue reading “Hover Ads”

FatWallet.com has put together an infographic of the fastest ships in the universe. They calculated the speeds of spaceships and other vehicles from a collection of sci-fi classics and ranked them by their top speeds.

I’m sure that the list is far from exhaustive, but I had fun reading the list of ships they chose. I was surprised, for instance, that the USS Enterprise NCC-1701D (from Star Trek: The Next Generation) did not even break the top 20.  But I did enjoy the fact that the Swordfish II made it on the list.

And I am definitely a fan of the third-fastest ship in the universe.

Click on the image for the full article at FatWallet.com and their infographic.

***Updated June 12, 2019 – FatWallet.com no longer exists, but the Fastest Ships in Sci-Fi study still exists at http://fastestships.com. The image link has been updated.