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Hey everybody! I didn't have to wear miniskirt armor in this movie, so I count that as a big win! (credit: Gods of Egypt)

By now you’ve heard rumors or seen the reviews, so you know that Gods of Egypt, out this weekend, is quite possibly the most terrible movie ever made. There’s a lot of competition for that dubious honor, so let’s just say it’s ONE of the most terrible. And that’s what makes it so damn fascinating.

On its surface, Gods of Egypt sounds like the premise of a cheesy 1990s fantasy game—or a 1950s B-movie. A young thief named Bek is trying to get by on the skill of his dextrous fingers in Egyptian Mythical Times (sort of like where Xena Warrior Princess is set, except in Egypt). All he wants to do is marry a cute girl but then she’s killed by a bad guy, so Bek decides to rescue her from the underworld. Activate dramatic arc involving an intensely uncharismatic hero and his thrilling ability to do things like jump around and grab stuff (yep his range of abilities is pretty much defined by what you can do with the arrows on a keyboard).

SpaceX's Falcon 9 and the SES-9 satellite are on the launch pad, and ready to go. (credit: SpaceX)

Twice SpaceX attempted to launch the SES-9 communications satellite into space last week, and twice the rocket company had to scrub. The reason was not weather, but rather issues with ensuring the rocket was fueled with the right amount of liquid oxygen postponed the festivities.

With its new, more powerful variant of the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX is having to handle this super-cold, dense propellant more carefully, and one of the things it is trying to do is deliver the right amount of fuel just before launch. With near perfect weather conditions expected for launch today, look for that to be the main issue to watch as SpaceX counts down toward the 6:46pm ET opening of the launch window.

As with other recent launches, SpaceX will try yet again to fly its booster back to an automated ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. However, because this is a high orbit (about 35,000km above the equator) and will require a heavy vehicle with more fuel and more speed, returning safely back to Earth is far from a sure thing. Additionally, at 5,300kg, this is the heaviest payload SpaceX has attempted to deliver to a geostationary orbit.

"Roses are red, the water is... purplish?" (credit: Nathan Mattise)

Like all of the scattered recollections I can access from the earliest years of my life, the memory is fuzzy. It’s more a cluster of blurry snapshots unified by a jumble of vague feelings. There is box of crayons, a wooden sailboat floating across the page, and a teacher’s loaded question.

“Why is the ocean purple?”

In this moment, there’s confusion, embarrassment, and about as much self-doubt as this barely self-aware first grader is capable of.

A Tesla S with autopilot features. (credit: Ron Amadeo)

Earlier this week, the Indiana legislature added an amendment to a bill that would have made it illegal for manufacturers to sell cars directly to consumers, a practice that electric vehicle company Tesla employs. But on Thursday that amendment was taken out of the bill, all but assuring Tesla’s continued operation in Indiana for the foreseeable future.

The direct-to-consumer business model has been the basis of Tesla’s operations, but it has rankled other car manufacturers and the dealers they sell through. Dealers, for their part, have fought back in several states like Texas, Arizona, and New Jersey, and over the years they've won legal barriers to keep Tesla from selling cars direct from the manufacturer.

The battle in Indiana was interesting because Tesla was honed in on GM, which recently released an electric vehicle that could be competitive with Tesla's forthcoming Model 3. Tesla accused GM of pushing the bill through the state’s legislature in a letter to its customers shared with Ars. However, Tesla could not provide solid proof of GM’s involvement.

(credit: The Strong Museum of Play)

You've gotta step away from the crowd and go do your own thing. You find a ground, cover it, it's brand new, you're on your own—you're an explorer. That's about what it's going to be like. Explore new vistas, new avenues, new ways—not relying on everyone else's way to tell you which way to go, and how to go, and what you should be doing.

—Jerry Lawson, from an interview with Vintage Computing and Gaming in 2009

Though you may not know his name, Jerry Lawson helped lay the groundwork for all modern gaming consoles. As chief hardware engineer for Fairchild Semiconductor’s game division in the 1970s, Lawson was largely responsible for the Fairchild Channel F—the first console to include its own microchip and the first to use cartridges.

Lawson was also black. And as this Black History Month winds down, it’s worth reflecting on his achievements because Lawson succeeded in Silicon Valley at a time when opportunities for black engineers and inventors were severely limited (even more so than today). As The New York Times once put it, “He was among only a handful of black engineers in the world of electronics in general and electronic gaming in particular.”

Early days

Jerry Lawson was born on December 1, 1940 and grew up in the Jamaica, Queens area of New York City. His father was a longshoreman who loved to read science books; his mother was passionately committed to ensuring her son received a good public school education. She went so far as to visit schools to interview the principal and teachers. If she didn’t like what she heard, her son was going to a different school.

Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

A world where you can slip on a tank top and gym shorts that track all of your workouts is a reality now—but it comes at a steep price. Hexoskin was one of the first companies to put out a range of smart exercise clothing, complete with shirts and tanks for men and women that monitor not just steps and calories but also heart rate, breathing, and more.

But being one of the first means jumping over many hurdles—not just in getting a product right, but also in getting users to buy it. A Hexoskin bundle includes a sensor-laced shirt, "brain pack" with the battery and Bluetooth sensors, and a charging cable costs for $399. That's a lot of money to pay for a garment that's going to get sweat on more often than not, but Hexoskin is hoping the technology underneath the surface will persuade serious gym-goers and athletes to take the plunge.

Col. Joseph Kittinger is ready to gooooooooo during Project Excelsior. (credit: National Museum of the US Air Force)

Aside from documentaries by Ken and Ric Burns, my favorite PBS program is American Experience, the invariably well done series that covers slices of US history. So when I heard the network planned to run an episode on "pre-astronauts," people who pushed into the edge of space and tested human physiology in extreme environments before NASA rose to prominence, I was eager to watch.

Space Men premieres Tuesday at 9pm ET on PBS. It chronicles Project Manhigh and Project Excelsior, two initiatives in which explorers rose as high as 102,800 feet in helium-filled balloons to experience the frigid cold and near zero atmospheric pressure of such altitudes. In some ways these missions set the stage for Project Mercury, which would come shortly after, and they're worth remembering for their own sake.

While I was familiar with Project Excelsior and the daring high altitude jumps made by Col. Joseph Kittinger, I admit I never heard the name John Paul Stapp, who entered the Army Air Corps as a physician in 1944. He really stands out in this episode as an out-of-his-time man who foresaw that one day humans would fly into space.