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5 Interesting Things Black Nerds Want to See and Not See In 2015 (And You May Even Agree)

It’s a new year, and we are all excited for what a brand new calendar may bring. As the new year carries a blank slate in a sense, a wonderment for what comes next, there are some resolutions we wish people would make. Some resolutions include giving the people what they deserve in the year that Back to the Future II promised us many things, and some items that need to get the Stark Family treatment this year.

This list is provided by William Evans of Black Nerd Problems (@blknrdproblems):

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A Period Drama with Mostly People of Color

As cynical as I am, I’m a bit surprised we don’t have something like this yet. You can’t swing a bored TV executive by the tail without hitting a new TV drama that takes place at least 20 years ago. And, Hollywood loves to show us racism as long as it isn’t present racism so we can act like we are 1000 years removed from it. So why can’t we get that as an ongoing series? I’ve alluded to this idea before, but we really are ready to see a multi-season drama dedicated to the Harlem Renaissance. Or the life of Roberto Clemente. Or Chinese migrant workers. I find it funny how I have to hear how we are in a post-racial society, but simultaneously hear Ridley Scott and Aaron Sorkin say they can’t sell minorities in prominent roles to the American public or get those projects funded. If the recent Wire marathon taught us anything, it’s that if the quality and support is there, you can make a great show (the greatest show) no matter what your characters look like.

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10 Budding Tech Hubs Besides Silicon Valley You Should Know As An Entrepreneur

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The state’s tech sector is growing primarily because of Google Fiber, a faster broadband provider, being moved and expanded there. Tech jobs are on the rise to feed Google Fiber’s work force.

OmahaSkyline_1__fxOmaha, Nebraska

The city has five Fortune 500 companies that all require tech workers. Berkshire Hathaway, Conagra and Union Pacific are major players in the city. SmartAsset ranked the city as one of the top ten cities to be a tech worker.

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8 Futuristic Features We Can’t Wait For Every Car To Have in a Matter of Years

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Self-Parking

Parallel parking is difficult for a lot of people. In a few years, this feature will be offered in many cars. A feature like this could possibly solve urban parking issues. Self-parking cars may prevent traffic jams, allow the cars to park in smaller spaces and making parallel parking faster.

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Medical Emergency Detection

In a few years, cars will have sensors that produce injury reports when car accidents occur. These reports will help doctors diagnose symptoms much quicker.

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The 5 Best Available Smartphones For Mobile Gamers

Smartphone technology has really advanced in recent years, and these devices can be used for everything from watching videos to playing games. They can range from both graphically sophisticated efforts like Asphalt 8 and things like casino roulette. These are the top five gaming phones of 2014.

This list is presented by a guest blogger from Black Girl Nerds.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 4 ($599)

This is the biggest Samsung smartphone — with a 5.7-inch, 1440 x 2560 resolution display – and image quality is superb. This makes it brilliant for games like Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5, where it is all about the graphics. Downsides are the cost and the fact that the 176-gram body isn’t all that comfortable over long periods of gaming.

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Top 11 Graphic Novels and Comics Of 2014 All Blerds Should Read

This year has been blerd-tastic as creators of color have made their mark on the publishing scene. It feels like each week hot new books are hitting virtual and IRL bookshelves. If you haven’t been able to keep up, no worries—here are our best picks for graphic novels created for, by or starring people of color from 2014, as presented by Terreece M. Clarke at LifeSlice Media.

Chew

CHEW by John Layman and Rob Guillory

The 8th volume in a long-running, award-winning series, Chew is drawn by Black artist extraordinaire Rob Guillory. Anthony (Tony) and Antonelle (Toni) Chu are fraternal twins. Tony is Cibopathic, able to receive psychic sensations of the past of anything he bites into or ingests. Toni is Cibovoyant, able to flash onto a vision of the future of any living thing she bit into or ingested. After Toni was murdered her brother Tony vowed to catch her killer with her help.

Legend of the Mantamaji

LEGEND OF THE MANTAMAJI BOOK ONE & BOOK TWO by Eric Dean Seaton creator, Brandon Palas -illustrator, Deron Bennet – letterer, Andrew Dalhouse – colorist

A Black superhero not of the Marvel/DC universe with its own history and characters? It’s true. Television director Eric Dean Seaton [Undateable, Austin & Ally, That’s So Raven, Reed Between the Lines, etc.] gathered an all-star crew to bring the first two volumes of his first graphic novel “Legend of the Mantamaji” to life. The Legend of the Mantamaji series tells the story of Elijah Alexander, a successful, brilliant, handsome Assistant District Attorney with a huge ego who discovers that all of the African legends his mother read to him when he was a child are true and that he is among the last of an ancient race of magical warriors sworn to protect humanity. As he discovers his heritage, Detective Sydney Spencer is hot on the trail of a super secret street gang behind an increase in crime and an increase in the demise of other gangs. Superheroes, science and plot twists combine in this action-adventure.

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10 of the World’s Biggest Recent Hacks and Data Breaches That Deserve Your Attention

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Sony PSN

It was a particularly rough year for Sony. Its PlayStation Network was hacked shortly after hackers also released tons of emails from Sony executives, which was allegedly a response by Korean hackers to the new film The Interview. Over the holidays, a group found a way to block thousands of PlayStation and Xbox users from getting online. The worst part for Sony is the fact that this wasn’t the first time hackers messed with the online network. Back in 2011, a group called Lulzsec hacked the gaming giant and forced Sony to shut down its PlayStation Network and Qriocity music service. This impacted roughly 77 million users and left them offline for more than 40 days.

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Massive American Business Hack

Just last year, hackers pulled off what was one of the most frightening security breaches yet. The hackers took aim at some of the biggest companies and corporations in America, including Nasdaq, 7-Eleven and more. The massive security breach allowed the group of hackers to steal 160 million credit and debit card numbers and impacted a whopping 800,000 bank accounts. Officials said it was certainly one of the largest hacking schemes to ever be prosecuted in the U.S.

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10 Cool and Futuristic Sci-Fi Technologies Invading Our Reality

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Doctor in the Car

Researchers at the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine have created the technology to determine likely injuries in an accident before help arrives. Predictive models were made by cross-referencing crash data from sensors on cars. The speed and location of impact, along with 3-D scans of accident victims, will be available for doctors.

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Exercise Underpants

The Finnish company Myontec has begun marketing underpants embedded with electromyographic sensors that tell you how hard you’re working your quadriceps, hamstrings and gluteal muscles when working out. This technology could help with weight loss and diets.

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7 Jobs That the Internet Killed

 

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Media-Distribution Stores

Thanks to the convenience and limitlessness of the Internet, the once-popular video stores are dwindling in number. The Internet has made movies so accessible that it has eliminated the need to leave one’s home to get a movie. Video-streaming services like Netflix give consumers instant access to a library of selections. The change in the video-distribution industry is one of the main reasons Blockbuster closed its retail stores and ended its mail-distribution services.

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Journalism

News reporting has been greatly affected by the ever-growing Internet. Today, news is not only spread by newspapers, TV, radio and magazines, but also through social media, blogs, podcasts and a variety of other media platforms available because of Internet access. Even the speed of the news cycle has been intensified as news is circulating 24/7 with social media. News distribution is in the hands of everyday citizens as much as it is with seasoned veterans.

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Camera Film Developers

Digital camera and photo-sharing technologies have made going to the film store almost unnecessary. Unless you need an old film roll developed, sharing photos has become easier than it’s ever been because of the Internet. Applications like Instagram allow you to photograph, edit and publish your photos and videos.

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Music Store Attendants

Much like the video stores, going to a music store isn’t necessary now that songs can be bought a la carte on the Internet. People purchase their music through iTunes or stream it online through services like Pandora or Spotify. The Internet also opens the door to pirating music and downloading it for free.

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Librarians

The Internet is a massive source of instantaneous information. Powerful search engines like Google provide more information much faster than the local librarian. Access to books, studies and any other published material can be found at the click of a button.

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Mail Carriers

Easy access to email and countless other messaging tools fueled by the Internet has lessened the demand for mail carriers. The U.S. Postal Service reduced its workforce from 623,000 in 2009 to 491,000 in 2013, according to The Washington Post.

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Publishers

The Internet has become a hot bed for innovation and creativity. Self-publishing through blogs or other means has been successful at generating and attracting a larger audience.

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5 Issues with the Latest Release of ‘The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’

… and by extension, the whole series of movies.

Plenty of other people have done better, more detailed reviews of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films. I’m not going to add to that list. Instead, I’m giving you a non-review in the form of a listicle. I’ll try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible.

This list is presented by Troy L. Wiggins from Afrofantasy.

Here are the five things that I disliked the most about the latest big-screen installment of The Hobbit:

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Not Enough Bilbo

I’m not too keen on Martin Freeman’s comedic stylings, but the man can play a darn good halfling. The film series is called The Hobbit for Ilúvatar’s sake, but we only see Bilbo show up in key plot moments, and even then only to do something entirely predictable for the sake of pushing the story along. Bilbo is the most well-rounded, most believable, most interesting character in the film (dare I say the whole film trilogy), but Jackson saw fit to give Thranduil more screen time – presumably to show us all what an awesome job the effects team did with Lee Pace’s makeup.

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