Perspectives
In-depth
These Virtual Delights Have Virtual Ends
Society moves forward, but maybe it never moves on. What if we told you that someone created an artificial place where robots and people acted solely for your benefit, and your own actions in this world had very little real-life consequences? In this fantastical place you could be someone else, and be able to indulge […]
A Stable Genius President
This week marks one year since the inauguration of Donald Trump, and its been quite a year. And, quite frankly, we’re sick of writing about it. So we have decided to ignore the Donald -if only for one day- and turn to the story of another billionaire business magnate turned President of the United States, […]
Voter Fraud, Where Are You!
“Alright, gang, the President has been saying that dead people are voting in our elections. This sounds just like the kind of mystery we need to solve, and fast.” “Dead voters? Zoinks, Freddy, does that mean we have to deal with gho-gho-ghosts?” “Rho-Rho-Rhosts!” *Comical running noise* According to Donald Trump and his cadre of ghouls, […]
X-Sanctuary Cities
There are people among us who are hunted, marginalized, and whose very existence in this country is considered to be a danger to others. We are of course talking about mutants, but we could as just easily mean illegal immigrants. After all, Donald Trump and others like him paint this small population as if they […]
A Two-Face System
Perhaps you’re familiar with Two-Face, the Batman villain, played both by Aaron Eckhart and by Tommy Lee Jones doing an impersonation of a malfunctioning black-light. Regardless of which version you cling to as the definitive one, Harvey Dent is a super-villain who uses his trademark coin to make all his decisions. One flip to decide […]
Affordable Health Potions
Well, we’re back from vacation and we spent our break playing a lot of roleplaying games and if there is one thing we have learned it is that every party needs a good healer. That is true whether you are a Level 1 Warrior or a Level 17 Civil-Engineer. However, the US Senate is looking […]
From Russia, With Love
Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Trump. I expect you to win. Bond… James Bond, was a legend of Cold War fiction. He was a handsome, fearless, well spoken man of action during a time when the politics of America and Russia dominated the global stage. Now, we once again find ourselves in […]
Why the World Needs Lois Lane
Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It doesn’t matter, because we ask that you look across the street to the office building and watch one intrepid reporter click-clacking away at her computer. Yes, the world needs Superman, but now more than ever the world needs people like Lois Lane. The world […]
Anatomy of a Trump Voter
This Presidential race is closer than you might think or hope… “Do’h!” And the reason is: that despite the hatred, bigotry, and sexism of Donald Trump, his voters are NOT all idiots or closet racists. -Don’t get us wrong, some very much are- but support for The Donald goes deeper than that. So we wanted to […]
The Empire Strikes Your Backyard
An oversized and heavily armored transport lumbers forward accompanied by armored troops with weapons at the ready. Impersonal faces concealed behind masks suddenly raise their weapons and fire into the crowd of rebels. Gas canister fall among the ragtag ranks as some of their number panic and scatter in the face of such an imposing […]
Evolution of Donald Trump
“I wanna be the very best. Like no one ever was…” No that’s not part of some Donald Trump campaign speech, it is actually the opening lines to the Pokemon theme song. Both The Donald and Pokemon Go saw a huge popularity at the height of the summer, but like the augmented reality phone app […]
A Traveler’s Perspective
So, our time on the road is coming to an end. As we make our way back to the Big Apple we find ourselves reflecting on our weeks of traveling across America. Sure, we could dwell on all the fun we had, all the interesting sights we have seen, or on all the things that went wrong. […]
Nerd York City
Excelsior, heroes, and welcome to our first installment of the The NYRD Trip. It’s a lot like a regular road trip except much nerdier. In the coming weeks our crew will be traveling around the United States to see some sights, have some experiences, and probably raid a few comic book shops along the way. […]
Declaration of Interdependence
Dear Great Britain, When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent […]
Firearm Statistics
It’s hard to unpack the events that happened in Orlando last week. There are a lot of elements to what is going, terrorism, violence against LGBTQ, but at the core of it is a very familiar debate about gun rights in the United States and a very familiar pattern of outrage, ineffectual silence, and a […]
The X-Bathroom
“Mankind has always feared what it doesn’t understand,” at least according to Magento, and as much as we want to disagree sometimes the hopeless cynicism of the Master of Magentism just tends to properly illustrate the plight of humanity. In the Marvel universe mutants are feared and hated because of their differences. They are unfairly labeled […]
The Millennial Falcon Generation
At it’s heart, Star Wars is a film series about generations of the same family, and in The Force Awakens we get to see a unique dichotomy between the older heroes and the newest generation, but that dichotomy also exists in our own world. Every family has a Vader who complains about Kylo Ren’s long […]
Real Money White House
Money is a tricky thing. We need it to survive and even be happy, but too much money can hurt fragile ecosystems. This is especially true for environments that are designed to balance skill with hard work, much like video games or politics. The gaming giant, Blizzard, found that out the hard way back in […]
The Cliff Test
Like many children of the 80’s and 90’s most of us here at The NYRD were fortunate enough to be raised by a third parent, television. The moving images on the screen kept us entertained and taught us many lessons in the process. Bugs Bunny expanded our vocabulary -indubitably- and how to avoid hunters by cross-dressing. […]
A Nerd Party Candidate
One thing has been made painfully clear this election cycle, America is in need of an overhaul of its political system. For the past century the United States has been stuck with two powerful political parties and now both the Democrats and Republicans are showing more holes than the plot of Spider-Man 3, except maybe […]
Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a flying illegal immigrant. Immigration, both legal and illegal, has been a hot topic issue for over a decade, but with the upcoming election it is gaining new prominence, thanks in part to our own toupee-wearing version of Lex Luthor. Donald Trump has […]
Giant Sword and Gun Control
It’s time to talk about a subject that makes some Americans uncomfortable. We here at The NYRD have been putting off delving into this topic for a while now as we know how divisive it can be, even if it really shouldn’t be. There are definitely hard core believers and zealots on both sides of […]
The Burden of Superman
We here at The NYRD have been doing a lot of soul searching. Any loss of innocent lives is worth a pause and a prayer, but being New Yorkers we feel a kinship with those who have lived through the events of cowardly and horrific acts of terror. Our hearts and our thoughts are with our brothers […]
Blerd Lives Matter
This past week, the nerd community saw the release of one of the most anticipated trailers of the year, Star Wars Episode VII. Unfortunately, almost immediately afterwards we also saw some Twitter trolls start the offensive hashtag: BoycottStarWarsVII. The campaign was supposedly created to stop Star Wars from pushing a evil multicultural agenda of tolerance and […]
Knights of the Old Religion
They say you should never talk about religion in polite company, so instead let’s talk Star Wars. For all their flaws, the prequels reveal something that is worth considering about the Jedi Order. It gives us a glimpse of a rigid dogmatic organization that finds itself being tested by new challenges and new ideas. So much so, that when the Jedi […]
A Prime Directive
For anyone who is not in the “know,” and by that we mean a complete Trekkie, the Prime Directive is the first imperative of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. It is a rule of non-interference. The developed Federation and by extension Starfleet cannot interfere with the affairs of developing worlds, or they might […]
Herosexual
Being a superhero is a tough and sometimes thankless job: fighting crime, battling super-villains, and constantly updating the look of your costume for every new movie. It’s even worse for LGBTQ heroes and heroines who we have yet to be featured in any of the blockbuster movies that have graced the screen in the recent decade. The […]
Doctor Why Not
This past week Hayley Atwell, star of Marvel’s Agent Carter was asked by fans whether she would consider a role on Doctor Who. Atwell, responded that she did not just want “a” role but “the” role of the Doctor herself. Of course, this was just a one-off-non-binding comment made on Twitter, but because this is […]
A Ruthless Terrorist Organization
A small organization built by disillusioned members around a cadre of rhetoric and colorful leaders. It meets its goals through terrorist plots, paramilitary invasions, and illegitimate business operations. The group’s leader is shrouded in mystery, his face not well known to the public at large. The group’s very name strikes fear and conjures up images of […]
Iran: The Home Game
For anyone who has been paying attention to what goes on in Time Square -and if you are a local that means as little as possible- this past week saw a massive protest by pro-Israel support groups against President Obama’s deal with Iran. We here at The NYRD were curious what all the fuss was […]
