Gravity Lens Weblog

Gravity Lens Archive April 30 - May 21 2005

Saturday, May 21

"Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!": The Law Offices of Mark E. Salamone have removed Robert Vaughn from their commercials and replaced him with William Shatner. If anyone sees online info for that please pass it on.

Friday, May 20

Something Awful gives us its funniest Photoshop Phriday in a while with Definitive Movie Posters.

Thursday, May 19

Grow-A-Brain links to this excellent Wikipedia list of fictional curse words, including felgercarb, rassin-frassin, and Hab SoSlI' Quch! (which is Klingon for "your mother has a smooth forehead.")

Abby Christopher of Wired tells us of a shapeshifting bicycle. Y'know, for kids...

Wednesday, May 18

A moment of silence, please, for Mr. Frank Gorshin.

Transhumanist site Better Humans has launched its new look.

Steven Grant of Comic Book Resources takes a look at the changing face of audience taste in comics.

On my holiday wish list: The Elseworlds Soviet Superman action figure.

Tuesday, May 17

In the wake this past weekend's Alien Planet, the National Geographic Channel has put up promo material for their upcoming special Extraterrestrial.

Christopher J. Falvey of McSweeney's subjects famous rock songs to a thesaurus.

Lakshmi Sandhana of Wired explores cutting edge technology that allows you to pet chickens over the internet. They call it Tele-Petting.

Neil Gaiman informs us that not only is there such a thing as a Gay Dollar, but that it has Emperor Norton on the face. This sounds like something from a story of mine...

More on Emperor Norton here, here, and here.

Monday, May 16

Keeping Up With the Joneses: Mother Jones. Indiana Jones. Tom Jones. Davy Jones. Howard Jones. John Paul Jones (not to be confused with John Paul Jones). Jesus Jones. Shirley Jones. Jenny Jones. Jennifer Jones. Catherine Zeta-Jones. James Earl Jones. Tommy Lee Jones. Terry Jones. Simon Jones. Quincy Jones. Jeffrey Jones (not to be confused with Jeffrey Jones). Alias Smith & Jones. Spike Jones. Agent Jones. Mrs. Jones. Halo Jones. Rick Jones (and his wife Marlo). Desolation Jones. J'onn J'onzz.

Friday, May 13

Space.com gives us a list of the Top 10 Space Imaginations at Work.

Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday brings us ill-conceived toys.

Speaking of which: I really need to know who the fuck came to the conclusion that the world needed a line of RuPaul fashion dolls.

Thursday, May 12

Ronald Bailey of Reason looks at the libertarian future of Transhumanism. This is a review of James Hughes' book Citizen Cyborg. A recent post on Mr. Hughes' blog confirms a sizable libertarian presence. Update: Dale Carrico responds.

On a related note, Better Humans is counting down to a new website.

Who Wants To Live Forever? Excluding such deathless entities as angels, vampires, gods, and other cosmic, metaphysical beings, there have been a lot of heroes and villains with no set lifespan. The assorted swordsmen of the Highlander franchise leap to mind, centered around Connor and Duncan MacLeod. Star Trek showed us the Platonians, Flint, and Kevin Uxbridge. Guinan could also fall into this category. In comics you've got such heavies as Vandal Savage and Ra's A Ghul, as well as the alien Guardians of the Universe. We've also seen Superman alive in the 853rd Century. Another group of alien immortals is Ikaris and the Eternals, not to be confused with the "Eternals" from the movie Zardoz. Warren Ellis' Planetary produced the "century babies" like Elijah Snow, Axel Brass, and Jenny Sparks (who died, but was immediately reborn). Babylon 5 gave us Lorien (the first sentient being in the galaxy) and Sebastian (a Vorlan-enhanced Jack the Ripper), and these were both played by the same actor. Chinese mythology contains eight immortals. Roger Zelazny gave us Conrad Nomikos. Karl Edward Wagner gave us Kane. C. S. Friedman gave us Gerald Tarrant. Michael Moorcock gave us Jerry Cornelius. Douglas Adams gave us Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged (who has a computer program named after him).

Captain Scarlet is "virtually indestructible," and if he can survive being eaten by sharks, I must assume geriatric maladies are no challenge.

It should be noted that neither The Man Who Would Not Die, nor The Man Who Wouldn't Die qualify for this list, although The Man Who Could Not Die does.

Here's a page that puts forth the notion that many comedy teams throughout history are, in fact, the same two immortal people.

On the other end of the spectrum is the very obscure Killraven villain the 24 Hour Man.

Wednesday, May 11

I get a chuckle every time I see a photo of the Klingon Elvis.

That odd feeling you're detecting is the glee being experienced by millions of geeks at the prospect of a 45gb recordable DVD.

Retrocrush has posted a glorious Dynamite magazine cover gallery.

Tuesday, May 10

Turn Your Head and Cough: Jim Stallard of McSweeney's gives us Medical Case Histories on Mount Olympus, while Polite Dissent introduces us to Thor, M.D.

The site for the mildly disturbing company Imaginary Girlfriends is currently making the rounds on the blogosphere. This seems to be in direct competition with the recent Virtual Girlfriend. While we're casting light on such unnerving relationships, here's the Girlfriend Stealer's Manifesto and the excellent (if lengthy) Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. If you have any energy left you can always go play Girlfriend Quest.

Monday, May 9

Recommended Readin': Renée Graham of Boston.com hails the return of prog rock.

SF Signal links to this Frank Black interview with Ray Bradbury at L.A. Alternative Press.

Both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens look at religion's response to the Asian tsunami in the new issue of Free Inquiry.

Mark Baard of Wired reports that no chrononauts attended the MIT Time Traveler convention.

Here's ABC's story on Saturday's Science Fiction Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

DC Comics is unveiling a new logo. On a related note, here's Joe Acevedo's index of assorted DC Comics' title logos.

That reminds me: For a while I've been thinking about a new logo for Gravity Lens. The current one (which is pretty much unchanged since its first appearence three years ago) is kind of a groovy lounge version of the old Fantastic Four logo. A while back several of you sent me some excellent Bad Day Studio logos. If any one has suggestions for the Lens, send'em here.

Sunday, May 8

More Jetsons technology arrives with the coming of the pneumatic vacuum elevator.

Todd Seavey of Metaphilm looks at fictional universes and the fans who rationalize them.

Friday, May 6

Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday fixes its gaze on the recently released photo of the new Superman.

A reminder that May sixth is No Pants Day.

Thursday, May 5

Modern Drunkard shows us some ingenious Doodads for the Distinctive Drunkard.

This Saturday is the 131st running of the Kentucky Derby. Every time this race comes around I can't help but think of Syd Mead's glorious vision of the 200th running, and of one of my favorite paintings: his classic "Running of the Six DRGXX."

Don't forget Saturday is also Free Comic Book Day.

Wednesday, May 4

Um, about that "number of the beast" thing: apparently it's not "666" after all.

The Mondolithic Image of the Week is a look at our bionic future.

Tuesday, May 3

Just a few days ago I asked for a documentary about Wayne Barlowe's Expedition. Then I saw this ad for Alien Planet at Discovery.

If anyone cares, the rights to Visions of Xenolympus are still available...

Retrocrush has begun counting down the top 100 coolest pop culture vehicles.

Recommended Readin': Michael Schirber of Space.com looks through a gravity lens.

John Byrne defines some of the common words used in the comics industry at UGO.

Lakshmi Sandhana of Wired reports on using technology to augment the animal kingdom.

Wil McCarthy at Sci Fi Weekly says the web is fine, but we need to get started building that Encyclopedia Galactica we've read so much about.

Monday, May 2

It is May. The God of the Month is Matsu. The Molecule of the Month is British Anti-Lewisite.

The Nebula Awards were given out this weekend. Here's the excellent speech Neil Gaiman delivered at it.

Looking ahead: If you happen to be near these coordinates at MIT this coming Saturday night (or anywhere else in the space-time continuum for that matter), you may want to attend the Time Traveler Convention. This will be the only event of its kind as "technically, you would only need one..."

Saturday, April 30

BBC reports that a three-ton humanoid figure made out of electronic waste is being unveiled on London's South Bank. Here's the project's official site. Anyone who read China Miéville's Perdido Street Station may find a resemblence to that book's spontaneous junkyard super-intelligence.

We're overdue for an Eye Candy Artgasm! Readers of this humble blog know that I like my SF concepts big and freaky like Orion's Arm, and that I have a soft spot for speculative "documentaries" like Galactic Geographic. So imagine my joy when George Dvorsky turned me on to Spacebloom: A Field Guide to Cosmic XFlora. This primer on spacefaring lifeforms is gorgeous, and will be on my bookshelf soon.

In a similar vein, here's Vincent Icke's spacelife site Sterrenzaad. It's in German, but the pictures are cool.

Here's Julian Baum's intense computer art exhibit about life in the next 1000 years.

The Cartoonist recently linked to the 3D art of Jürgen Ziewe.

Reality Carnival introduces us to the beautiful interactive sculpture Octofungi.