Blockbuster Shutting Down 960 Stores

• Even the big boys are feeling the effects of competition. Blockbuster has announced that it will close 960 stores by the end of 2010.

NetFlix Contests

• NetFlix, on the other hand, has some money to spend. It just awarded a $1 million prize to a group that figured out a better rating system than the one NetFlix currently uses. It liked this idea so much, it started another contest. How good are your programming and analytical skills?

Disney Expansion

• At their D23 Expo, Disney unveiled plans to completely revamp FantasyLand and the Star Tours ride. There are some cool videos that show an imagineering look at what is in store.

Cobol Anniversary

• If you are under the age of 40, the chances are that you may not have even heard of COBOL. But the Common Business-Oriented Language has just celebrated its golden anniversary.

Hubble

• Hard to believe that the Hubble space telescope has been up there for almost twenty years now, isn’t it? Though it got off to a rocky start, it sure does send us back some nice pictures now.

MIT Students Space Camera on a ShoeString Budget

• If you can’t afford to build your own Hubble Telescope, but still want your very own pictures from Space, you can always try what these MIT Students did… on a $150 budget!

Nerd of the Week

• H.G. Wells, famed science fiction writer and author of The War of the Worlds, was born this week in 1866.

Recording the podcast on the road was a bit of a challenge. We ended up having to use Skype on an iPhone for John’s recording. So that’s why he sounds like he was in a distant part of the world. In actuality, he was in the same hotel room with us. But we’re happy to have been able to do it at all given that we didn’t take a ton of equipment with us.

We hope you enjoy the show. Thanks for listening!