Well, pwns is a little strong. But watch this video in which Tufte — who lectures and writes about information and design — leads the audience through the major design achievements and failings of the Jesusphone. Sample nitpick: the persistence of a thick, opaque bottom bar in iPhone’s web browser — if it were transparent you could …

Virgin Galactic is showing off its design for SpaceShipTwo, which a press release describes as “nearly 60% complete.” No big surprises here — it has the same basic profile and uses the same kind of launch vehicle as SpaceShipOne. I would’ve hoped they at least made some breakthroughs on the clever-ship-names front, but not yet, …

PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Distribution

The game wizards at TSR will release “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons — The Lost Modules” on January 28, 2008. These never-before-published role-playing adventures have finally been unearthed for D&D fans — UNEDITED, IN THEIR ORIGINAL FORM! Recently discovered in the vaults of TSR, they were …

From MSNBC (and I’m sure by now many other places) comes the astounding news that Heath Ledger has died at the age of 28 in an apartment in New York City. At this very sad and unexpected moment we should pause to salute his contributions to nerd cinema. While not even remotely nerdy himself, he did worthy service in the surprisingly …

Or you will shortly. We’ve been getting massive comment spam, so we’re tightening up the borders. Once you register you’ll be able to comment as before. Also, Matt and I will be able to see you through your computer screen.

If not, then probably not.

On the nineteenth anniversary of its release, Nerd World sat down with Billy Joel at his Sagaponack home to discuss the cultural impact of his classic song.
NERD WORLD: I just listened to the song again. It’s amazing how well it’s held up. All those things have still happened.
BILLY JOEL: Thanks, it’s a really special song to me. …

I’m not old enough to remember Good Bobby Fischer. He beat Spassky in Iceland in 1972, when I was 3. I more got Bad Bobby Fischer — you know, the guy who hated Jews (is that why CNN calls him a “world-class eccentric”? That’s one way to put it) and periodically had passport problems.

I guess I should feel bad for him, since he almost …

It’s being widely reported that Hasbro has asked Facebook to kill Scrabulous, a third-party app for playing Scrabble online.

Scrabulous is insanely popular — it claims around half a million users daily. More important, Scrabulous is insanely popular with me: I never have fewer than 3 games going at once. (And I never, ever cheat.) It’s …

I didn’t do this interview with J.J. Abrams, producer of Cloverfield, creator or co-creator of Felicity, Alias, Lost and all the stars in the heavenly firmament. The exceptionally sharp interlocutor here is Rebecca Winters Keegan, Time’s Hollywood correspondent. This is for a piece in the next issue of Time about end-of-the-world movies, …

I’m covering MacWorld from the relative safety of midtown Manhattan this year, which means compulsively reloading various livebloggers’ websites. Glamorous! I gambled that CES would be dull this year and won. Let’s see how I do with MacWorld.

As usual, the keynote started slow. Leopard, yay. iPhone updates, yay. Movie rentals, HD, yay, …

Deck the halls and ’tis the season for that most wonderful time of year! It’s me, Carla Jean Moss, and can you believe it’s been a year since my last Christmas Letter? Where did the time go? It’s been a crazy year, I tell you that. But I guess I say that every year.

First off, we had a lot of action the Terrell County Wal-Mart. …