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Story time! I assume you were all once children. Probably nerdy children, with dreams of being comic book artists, videogame designers, robot designers, and more. I did all of these thing at various points, and I also thought I was going to be a comic strip artist (best not to ask, really. Although the above sketches of me hanging out with Christopher Lee while he kills Jedi I drew at the tender age of 25. Sorry it's reversed, but I'd rather go out drinking than fix it right now).

So the contest is this: Tell me your awesomest nerdy childhood creation. I feel pretty damn confident most of you created characters and superheroes and such, or planned out brilliant videogames, or dreamed up books where you were a ninja, or assembled incredible machines out of Legos. Tell me these stories -- well, one story each -- and the awesomest childhood creation wins.

Since you only get one entry, they can be up to 250 words. NOT A WORD MORE. If have pictures of these childhood creations and are brave enough to show them to the entire class, email them to me; however, I will not give extra points for pics as to remain somewhat fair. The contest ends at 12:01 am on Monday, October the 18th. Got all that? Good. Have a great weekend! And by the way, any ideas of heroes with motorcycles will likely be docked points. I'm sure you understand.

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After years of bullshit, nonsense and utter incompetence, movie studio MGM has finally announced a start date to making the prequel to one of the financially successful film franchises of all time. Yes, The Hobbit has been "greenlit," meaning a date has been set to start filming, which happens to be February 2011. Peter Jackson is attached to direct. Yeah.

Not happening.

Sorry to get your hopes up, but just because MGM set a date doesn't mean they've stopped being total fuckwits. Look, they still haven't cast anyone, including Bilbo; they still haven't worked out the labor/SAG issues, if they don't get that figured out they won't shoot in New Zealand and all the pre-production work will be wasted -- there's still an immense amount of things that have to go right for this movie to actually get made, and just because MGM says they're shooting in February is no reason to believe they'll get their shit together. I can mark a date in my calendar; does't mean I'll be sober enough to remember when my anniversary rolls around. (Via Blastr)

Alert and sober Topless Roboteer Bruce E. alerted me to the fact that Hasbro finally updated the G.I. Joe: Renegades section at their Hub website, with a few screenshots (which look fine, FYI) and some character designs and bios that are... well... odd. I don't mean that in a bad way or a good way -- they're just... weird. Consider this you spoiler warning, because the bullet points below are all things I thought were notable:

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• Cobra Commander, shown above, apparently doesn't exist except on video. Weird. As is his half-helmet thing. He's also named Adam de Cobray, which used to be the Baroness' last name, right?
• Because Tunner Rat is skilled in tunnels, apparently this makes him an expert on worms. Huh?
• Flint is not part of G.I. Joe, but the leader of the team assigned to catch G.I. Joe. Because G.I. Joe are Renegades.
• General Abernathy is Flint's boss, and inexplicably has a mohawk.
• Because Cobra is apparently a well-known, seemingly non-evil company in Renegades' world, the Baroness is their PR director when she's not being evil. Also her name is Anastasia Cisarovna.

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• For reasons unknown, Storm Shadow has apparently wrapped his head in toilet paper.
• Dr. Mindbender's name is Brian Bender. Seriously.
• Apparently, Cobra took over MARS Industries and not only forces Destro to supply Cobra with weapons, but CC also forces him to wear his metal mask. He seems like he hates Cobra, which kind of freaks me out.

See? None of that is bad, per se -- well, maybe Storm Shadow's toilet paper mask -- but it is all really... weird. Different. I don't mind, but I'm not 100% how it'll all work. You can check out all the character designs and bios here, if you're so inclined.

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I've never understood anyone who's really into vehicles. I mean, I can appreciate a nice-looking car, but I'm just claustrophobic enough to need cars with a decent amount of room inside, so I dislike riding in crazy sports cars, and I'm not a good enough driver that I'd feel comfortable in something nice anyways. Basically, as long as a car can get me places and doesn't break down, that's all I need, and all I'll ever need.

The point is, this story from author StSE is extra baffling to me, although I'd admittedly find it baffling even if I did have some kind of vehicular vanity. It's about Wolverine from the X-Men meeting the Transformers Animated version of Prowl, who is apparently a ninja who turns into a motorcycle. The gist is this: Wolverine accidentally stumbled into a fight between Prowl and some Decepitcons while on his Harley. The Harley was destroyed, Wolverine killed all the Decepticons who didn't run, and then captured Prowl with incredible ease. To make up for his lost Harley, Wolverine demands that Prowl be his motorcycle for three months, or...

Chuckling, Logan's fingers ran along the curving panels rising up from the alien mech's shoulders. The moon light reflected off of their golden surface as if they were coated in diamonds. True, he wasn't into Riceburners by any means - but this one must be a beaut! "I don't care about money. YOU owe me - not them. So it's YOU that has to work the dept off," his voice got even lower, "So that means that YOU are my ride for the next, mmmmm, three months."

Three earth months?!? The man HAD to be joking!!! "And if I don't agree? What - are you going to do about it?" the bike really wished he'd get his hands off of him, his nets were activating now, the hum obvious to any mech. Thankfully, the human seemed blessedly unaware of the sounds of mech arousal.

Logan grinned at him. "Well, I've always wondered what Decepticons would do to an Autobot they found tied up and spread-eagled? Haven't you?" he purred.

I can't say I have. But I imagine it would be far less ridiculous than what takes place after the jump.

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Atari is relaunching/rebooting/reimaginging the old Atari 2600 game Star Raiders. You might remember it -- and I stress might -- as the game that had its own crazy touchpad controller that virtually no other Atari game used. The new Star Raiders will be a 3-D space battle sim with warps and customizable ships and god knows what else. My question is this: Why?

I don't know anyone who has ever said "Man, I wish they'd remake Star Raiders," and I don't believe anyone ever has. It wasn't a good game, or that bad a game. In fact, the only only reason anyone remembers Star Raiders at all is because of that huge stupid controller it had.  I guarantee I love the Atari 2600 more than at least 90% of you, and even I don't give the tiniest shit about Star Raiders. If Atari wants to make a space combat game, they should make a space combat game, fine. But they shouldn't pretend they're bringing back some classic beloved franchise while doing so. Hell, I'd be more excited by a new Frostbite game. Or Barnstorming. Or Oink! and I fucking hated Oink!. (Via Kotaku)

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They're not even pretending any more. For example, a bunch of human race-hating scientists in Slovenia have just gone up and made a robot specifically designed to punch humans. From New Scientist:

ISAAC ASIMOV would probably have been horrified at the experiments under way in a robotics lab in Slovenia. There, a powerful robot has been hitting people over and over again in a bid to induce anything from mild to unbearable pain - in apparent defiance of the late sci-fi sage's famed first law of robotics, which states that "a robot may not injure a human being".

But the robo-battering is all in a good cause, insists Borut Povše, who has ethical approval for the work from the University of Ljubljana, where he conducted the research. He has persuaded six male colleagues to let a powerful industrial robot repeatedly strike them on the arm, to assess human-robot pain thresholds.

It's not because he thinks the first law of robotics is too constraining to be of any practical use, but rather to help future robots adhere to the rule. "Even robots designed to Asimov's laws can collide with people. We are trying to make sure that when they do, the collision is not too powerful," Povše says. "We are taking the first steps to defining the limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely interact with humans." ...

The team will continue their tests using an artificial human arm to model the physical effects of far more severe collisions. Ultimately, the idea is to cap the speed a robot should move at when it senses a nearby human, to avoid hurting them. Povše presented his work at the IEEE's Systems, Man and Cybernetics conference in Istanbul, Turkey, this week.

Dude. You want to keep robots from colliding with humans? Put a fucking sensor on them that tells them when something is close so they don't run into it. It's not hard; we have them on fucking cars now so people don't back up onto children. All you're doing is making a robot designed to inflict pain on humans. I love forward to these assholes' next experiment, which is to teach a robot not to murder humans by building a robot that does nothing but murder humans all day. Thanks to Church for the tip.

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This is Kika, star of the guy who did the ridiculous/awesome movie The Machine Girl's new flick, called Helldriver. As you might have noticed, Kika is wielding a sword that has a chainsaw chain around it, which might be the most awesome fucking thing ever. The movie is your standard high school girl tries to kill the queen of the zombies after the apocalypse story, but as usual, director Yoshiro Nishimura has given it his own unique spin, which includes baby arms growing out of some chick's face and a car made entirely out of zombies. But why tell when I can show?

The only way this could be better is with a guest appearance by this famed zombie killer. (Via Japanator)

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From the Hollywood Reporter:

Marvel and ABC are developing a TV return for comic icon the Incredible Hulk. CBS last produced a memorable series featuring the jade giant that ran from 1978-82 and starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno. ...

Hulk is one of two projects that are priorities at Marvel Television, Marvel Studio's TV division, which has been operating under the radar since Jeph Loeb took the reins at the end of June.

The second hot property is "Cloak and Dagger," which is being developed for ABC Family.

Both are in the early stages of development; Hulk has a "showrunner wanted" placard around its neck. ABC had no comment. Meanwhile, Loeb is meeting with writers to hear ideas for "Cloak and Dagger."

First of all: Yay. Second of all, I'm sure most of you are excited about the prospects of a new Hulk TV series, but I'm all for Cloak and Dagger. Why? Well, because I read the shit out of Cloak & Dagger comics when I was a kid, although I have no idea why. At any rate, I have a shockingly high nostalgic affection for Cloak and Dagger, so I'm always happy to see them get a little love.

But third and most importantly, the New Age of superhero TV is finally winding up. We've had a lot of superhero series in recent years, from Heroes and Smallville to No Ordinary Family and The Cape, and with the exception of Smallville, they were all of new, original characters. I doubt I've been the only nerd who has wished network TV would stop trying to make their own superheroes which there are hundreds of awesome, well-established comic characters ripe for the picking. Why a network thinks someone would want to watch some jackass called The Cape over, say, a Batman TV series is beyond me -- I imagine they were just trying to see if they could capitalize on the superhero movie craze without paying a massive licensing fee, but they can't. Duh.

So now Hollywood is working on a new Hulk series, a new Wonder Woman series, and a Cloak and Dagger show, and there'll almost certainly be more to come. Sure, some of these will suck, but there's always the chance they might be awesome. And even if they aren't they'll be of characters we give a shit about, and not a thinly veiled middle-class rip-off of the Fantastic Four. This is shit to look forward to, guys.

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Well, that didn't last long. Not a week after I praised Warner Bros. for not forcing 3-D shittiness onto Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Warner Bros. has decided to force 3-D shittiness on... all the Harry Potter movies. Yep, all the HP movies from Sorcerer's Stone on up will be retrofitted into 3-D, and we all know that looks awesome and has no problems whatsoever, like the critically acclaimed Clash of the Titans. Which is great, since the same company that did Clash is doing the HP movies for Warner! I believe the appropriate response here is "Squick." (Via /Film)

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First off: Topless Robot readers are all sophisticated, cosmopolitan people. They are all brilliant, classy, attractive, well-adjusted social members of society. Topless Robot readers are the Cristal of internet readers. And you are nerds.

That's fine. Being a nerd no longer means that you carry a pocket protectors and have taped glasses and no social skills; unfortunately, no one has seemed to alert mainstream pop culture of this. It's still portraying nerds in movies and TV shows as the old stereotypes still hold true. Admittedly, some nerd portrayals are more accurate than others, but none of them are doing real, regular nerds that can actually function in society and maintain eye contact with the opposite sex any favors. In no particular order, here's 15 of the worst offenders.

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