Gravity Lens Weblog

Archive: January 1 - January 24 2005

Monday, January 24

Assorted Items: Al Goldstein, the founding father of porn, now sells bagels. Shudder.

Tom McMahon links to this great Wikipedia entry on Heavy Metal Umlauts.

Everybody flick your lighters for Guitarbot.

Wired has a story on artist and wind-powered-leviathan builder Theo Jansen.

Sunday, January 23

No photos yet, but McFarlane Toys announces figures of both The Simpsons and Wallace & Gromit for later in 2005.

Friday, January 21

Feast your eyes upon the action figure of Marvin the Paranoid Android. Oh, I hope it talks.

Thursday, January 20

Recommended Readin': Michael Cassutt of SciFi Weekly talks about good SF film design.

Russell Blackford of Better Humans confronts the argument that unnatural = immoral.

Vincent E. Parr of Free Inquiry gives us the mathematical equation for true happiness.

Metafilter links to this index of Natural Phenomena Named After Frank Zappa.

Assorted Star Trek Stuff:

From the makers of Romu-Lean and Ferengi Cuisine comes Klingon Karb Bars.

Here's an archived Modern Drunkard story on the role of alcohol in the Trek universe.

Lastly, here's a guide to the alien lifeforms in the Gold Key Star Trek comics.

(It should be noted that the Klingon Karbs gag comes from Polite Dissent, which hosts an intriguing series of medical reviews of comic books.)

Wednesday, January 19

Blogospherics: SciFi Webguide links to the Today in Alternate History site.

SF Signal sends us to this BBC page of Sherlock Holmes stories.

Metafilter points to One Eyed Bob's Inappropriate Toys for Children.

More Assorted Items: Here's a couple pieces by science writer Robert Roy Britt, one about cities being designer ecosystems, and another about Jupiter-sized blobs of hot gas tearing through the cosmos at near-light speed.

In other science news, work continues on making the Internet accessible from space.

Newsarama gives us the skinny on this year's Free Comic Book Day.

Even though it looks like Star Trek: Enterprise will soon come to an end, producer Rick Berman just doesn't know when to walk away...

Currently going around the blogosphere: pix of Bill Gates from a 1983 issue of Teen Beat.

Tuesday, January 18

Assorted Items: The Cartoonist links to this Belgian gallery of Doc Savage art.

BBC Science has a story about nanobots with living muscle tissue.

The Mondolithic Image of the Week is a neat space war between XM and Sirius radio.

Go download the trailer for the upcoming CGI Captain Scarlet. Now. While we're at it, I need to own this Spectrum Cloudbase playset.

And speaking of aerial fortresses, here's a history of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.

This week's vintage download at Kiddie Records: The Happy Prince, featuring Bing Crosby, Orson Welles, with a soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann. Damn.

Monday, January 17

Incoming Signals links to this alleged 1918 article about how the Earth will someday spin itself into the shape of a tetrahedron. While we're on the subject of our homeworld, let's check in on the upcoming cruise expedition inside our hollow Earth.

SciFi Weekly interviews author John Varley.

Richard Branson says space tourism will happen within three years.

Saturday, January 15

If you all loved me, you'd pitch in and buy me one of these. Via Coudal.

I know this is a couple days old, but to due bandwidth issues I just got a chance to look at the Philosophical Powers fake action figure site. Very funny.

Friday, January 14

The Huygens probe has landed on Saturn's moon Titan and is beaming back data. So far no report of Sirens, shape-shifting Gameplayers, confused sentient robots, horny robots, fast-moving shuttlecraft, or a race of Eternals living on the interior of the moon.

Other science fiction books featuring Titan include Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth, and Stephen Baxter's Titan.

If you haven't yet seen this elsewhere on the internet, you must immediately stop what you are doing and go play Six Degrees of Snapper Carr.

Which of these is more of an oxymoron: Nerd Gym or Practical Hippie?

Thursday, January 13

Wil Radcliff of Broken Frontier makes the case for comic book TV commercials. In the meantime, Marvel is prepping a series of TV commercials...

The deadline is next week, but you can win some Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy movie props from Ain't It Cool News by writing some Vogon poetry.

Wednesday, January 12

"Will Life be Worth Living in 2000 AD?"

McSweeney's has some Rejection Letters From Xavier's School of Exceptional Youth. The rejectees could always go forward in time and join the Legion of Substitute Heroes...

Science Stuff: As I continue to play with my RoboSapien, the next model has been unveiled, as well as the very cool RoboRaptor.

The first direct observation of an extrasolar planet has been made. More here.

The universe is apparently populated by large Galactic blobs.

And Metafilter links to an essay by Richard J. Norton about the prospect of cities going feral.

Tuesday, January 11

In relation to Sunday's space station post: Which station is cooler, Electric Light Orchestra's or Blue Oyster Cult's? And while we're at it, could Boston's ship beat Journey's ship?

Such thoughts make it obvious that I am clearly insane.

Recommended Readin': Wil McCarthy of SciFi Weekly calls for building crash test cities.

Meera Nanda of New Humanist looks at recent efforts to undermine science.

Sam Dinkin of The Space Review discusses ways we could terraform the Earth.

Monday, January 10

Geekpress introduces us to Rotundus, the spherical robot. Now if only we could get it to bounce like the robots in that Space: 1999 episode... (although The Cartoonist thinks it's more like the balloon rovers from The Prisoner.) (And Nyrath writes in to remind me of the Zeroids from TerraHawks.)

From Memepool: A Portugeuse site featuring photos of rock stars when they were kids.

Sunday, January 9

Space Stations and Such: Although most fictional stations in Earth orbit do not subscribe to the classic designs of the Bernal Sphere, the Stanford Torus, or the O'Neill Cylinder (with the exception of Island Three from Gundam), there are still some cool objects whipping around up there. You've got the 2001 station, Starfleet Space Dock, Thunderbird 5, the Justice League Satellite (and the one from the cartoon), Hugo Drax's station, S.I.D., and the crucifix from that Camel album.

And before anyone writes in: yes I know Stormwatch had a space station, I just can't find any good pix of it. And Major Matt Mason's space station was on the moon.

And on a thoroughly unrelated subject, here's an article on the Irish in space.

Because there was a chat on the Comment Board about schematics, here's layouts for Avengers' Mansion, the Baxter Building, the JLA Watchtower, and the Fortress of Solitude.

Saturday, January 8

A couple items from across the pond: First off, I-Films has a great "making of" preview of the upcoming full-length Wallace & Gromit film. Secondly, the band XTC has released the first in a series of figures of the band from various periods.

Friday, January 7

Author Margaret Atwood has reportedly invented a remote autographing machine.

Could there be a sweeter job than starship pilot? Lucky craft are guided by the capable hands of Sulu, Don West, Chewbacca, Joshua Calvert, Beowulf Shaeffer, Carmen Ibenez, Leela, Jason of Star Command, and Ace Rimmer. Some ships are flown by computer, like Waldo of the Starjammers and the Andromeda Ascendant. Others are autonomous, like Starlord's "Ship" and Christa from Space Cases. My favorite pilots are the ones specifically designed for the task, like the Guild Navigators of Dune, Farscape's Pilot and the unfortunate Space Jockey.

I once wrote a brief ode to such creatures.

Thursday, January 6

A guy has already gotten in line for the next Star Wars film...

A couple weeks ago Zack Parsons of Something Awful wrote a funny piece rating the assorted invasions of Earth.

SciFi Webguide links to Canada's Bureau of Sasquatch Affairs.

There are several new timelines up at the site of Edgar Governo: Historian of Things That Never Were. And while we're talking about fictional history let's revisit the pages for David Brin's Uplift series, Larry Niven's Known Space, Asimov's Robot/Foundation universe, Frank Herbert's Dune, and personal favorites Faction Paradox and Orion's Arm.

Wednesday, January 5

American Radio Works has an intriguing feature on Y2K, discussing how much was a hoax, what troubles were averted, and how it is still affecting the tech industry.

Cool Swag: Toy Vault is releasing a great looking set of Egyptian God plush dolls.

Tuesday, January 4

Comics legend Will Eisner has died. More here.

Assorted Items: Gaze in wonder at the glory of Red Sonja.

The January Fungus of the Month is the unpleasant Paracoccidioides brasiliensis.

George Dvorsky of Better Humans looks at the possible role of autism in human evolution.

New Scientist has a story about a proposed alternative calendar. This isn't the first time such a proposal has been made. And here's a list of other calendars we could be using.

Monday, January 3

A moment of silence, please, for Kelly Freas.

"Moot" on the comment board links to this archive of of the correspondence of T.M. Maple, who wrote countless letters to assorted comic book letter columns. On a related note, here's an archive of Legion of Superheroes lettercols, as well as DC's attempt to continue the grand tradition online.

Sunday, January 2

It is January. The God of the Month is Janus, God of Doorways.

From Boing Boing: "For the entire 2005 year, Basic Hip Digital Oddio will be featuring weekly stories and songs from the golden age of children's records. Each one of these recordings has been carefully transferred from the original 78s (plus a few 45s) and encoded to 192kbps MP3s for you to download and enjoy."

Kenneth Silber of Tech Central Station previews some high profile events for 2005. One of them is a Science of Star Wars exhibit coming to Boston's Museum of Science.

Saturday, January 1

Blogospherics: The Website at the End of the Universe has posted another splendid downloadable science fiction calendar for the new year. It's a PDF file.

The Cartoonist links to this archive of K-Tel albums. If this has no significance to you, you are clearly too damned young.

Coudal sends us to partake of the I, Claudius Drinking Game.