Epic Game’s massively hyped Xbox 360 title Gears of War dropped this week, with the majority of reviews in agreement that for once, a game has actually lived up to the hype surrounding its launch. I’ve played through the first chapter now, back to back with my valiant squad mate Sonic Heaven, and I have to say I agree.

Comparing Gears to other games out there is a difficult feat. At its most fundamental Gears is a tactical action game that focuses on using cover to do battle with hiedous, subterrainian monsters that, in typical monster fashion, are out to destroy the human race. But it’s the way that Epic went above and beyond what we’ve seen in tactical shooters in the past, the gameplay, the graphics, the insane amount of gore that makes Gears of War so instantly memorable, and so thoroughly enjoyable. Also, did I mention the chainsaw bayonet?

Chainsaw. Bayonet.

On a whim I picked up Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe” recently, curious to take a peek a what the scientific community is concerning itself with here in the 21st century. While the book promises to detail aspects of one of the physics community’s more recent hypothetical endeavors, string theory, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Greene starts off by presenting a very concise, easy to understand explanation of Einstein’s General and Special Relativity theories.

Admittedly I don’t lose any sleep not having a clue how any of this works, but it’s nice to have at least a minor grasp on how science thinks the universe around us is put together. So, if you’re interested in understanding a little bit more about how time and space behave, and why all the molecules in your body don’t explode at the speed of light for no reason, take a look The Elegant Universe: there’s even a NOVA special accessible online!

This guy won $1,000 from a bar in Akron, Ohio last night for his Halo-themed halloween costume. Bonus points: the needles on that needler glow in the dark.

Ever since making the switch back to Mac over two years ago, I have really enjoyed using iCal. I bought a .Mac account thinking that I would be able to keep up to date with my appointments no matter where I was. However, anyone who subscribes to .Mac knows how poorly implemented their online calendar is. All you get is a static calendar that can’t be modified. With the launch of Google Calendar and its ability to sync with iCal I thought that I had finally found the answer to multi-location calendar modification. I was saddened to learn that the synchronization only works one-way: Google Calendar to iCal. Changes made in my iCal software would not be reflected when I logged into Google Calendar while away from home. The result is that I find myself using solely Google Calendar while iCal just sits in my dock looking lonely.

It looks like this may be about to change. Spanning Sync enables two-way synchronization between iCal and Google Calendar. Check out the very promising video demonstration on the developer’s site. The product is planned to go into a closed beta soon. We’ll keep you up to date as more details emerge!