Gravity Lens Weblog

Archive March 7 - March 24

Friday, March 24

Recommended Readin': Robert Roy Britt at Space.com looks at the birth of super-galaxies.

Astrobiology talks to Larry Toups about the challanges of building dwellings on the moon.

Technovelgy touches on the same subject.

Mmoma Ejiofor at Wired looks at the coming age of wearable computers.

Wired also gives us a list of the best Sci Fi Concept Albums, but somehow Alan Parsons' I, Robot, 2112 by Rush, Lenny White's Adventures of the Astral Pirates, and The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots failed to make the list.

Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday gives us intellectually pretensious video games.

Thursday, March 23

Stellar Cartography: Here are galactic maps from the Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, and Farscape galaxies. Gaming maps include Lightspeed, Dark Millennia, Orion's Arm, Terran Empire, Dragonstar, and a couple others I can't identify.

Compare and Contrast: Kim Hollis of Box Office Prophets pits the novel Dune against its movie adaptation, while Scott Nance of SyFy Portal examines the two incarnations of Baltar from Battlestar Galactica.

If a war against the machines makes you nervous, be aware that you live in a world with robot museum guides, koi carp, tick killers, lawnmowers, and musical turtles.

Oh, and the next generation of Robo-Sapien may will be much smarter.

Wednesday, March 22

The Hugo nominations have been announced, and this is the least embarrassing slate of nominees I've seen in a while. Nice to see so many Doctor Who episodes make the cut, including the Captain Jack episodes.

On a related note, I really like the look of the upcoming Doctor Who action figures, especially the creepy Slitheen.

SciFi Tech Blog tells us someone's finally built that neat handheld display from Earth: Final Conflict.

Eye of the Goof links to this recent Datajunkie page about The Prisoner, including book jackets and scans of an unpublished Prisoner comic by Jack Kirby!

Tuesday, March 21

Assorted Items: J. Michael Straczynski's new column at Newsarama is up.

UGO shows us the Top Eleven Space Ships (via SF Signal).

Pat Bahn of The Space Review looks at the criteria of the Heinlein Prize.

Dial B for Blog remembers the many titles introduced during the DC Explosion of the 1970s.

Monday, March 20

I missed this last Friday, but Retrocrush had the same St. Patrick's day idea I had, only with much better execution.

Alicia Chang of Red Orbit updates us on the race to launch the space tourism industry.

Friday, March 17

Let's celebrate St. Patrick's Day by saluting characters that are green.

And let's not forget Green Lantern, Green Hornet, Green Goblin, the Green Manalishi, the Green Man, and the Green Thing.

A reminder for those who haven't seen them yet: the new episodes of Doctor Who make their debut tonight on SciFi.

Your Devo action figure with five interchangable heads has arrived.

Thursday, March 16

The headline reads "Robots break Asimov’s first law." The author seems to have a vague understanding of the laws, as the robots in question are remote controlled.

George Dvorsky emails in an even better headline: "Growing Demand for Robot Pigs."

Technovelgy shows us a neat wrist-worn PC.

Wednesday, March 15

At Comic Book Resources, Stuart Max Perelmuter begins a three-part essay on the creation of Superman.

Several tech blogs are linking to the very cool-looking full body Buggy Rollin' Suit. (Warning: site is Flash-heavy)

Tuesday, March 14

Space Stuff: Helen Briggs of the BBC visits the newly discovered super-Earth.

Joanna Glasner of Wired looks at research into expanding the internet into space.

SpaceRef introduces us to the SpaceX Dragon. When completed, it could be America's first privately financed manned orbital spacecraft.

Monday, March 13

El Jefe Commands You: go and read the awesome six page preview of the upcoming Flaming Carrot photo-comic!

Robin Lloyd at Space.com reports on giant stars that appear to have cocoons around them.

No word if they are Dyson Spheres, Matrioshka Brains, or some other relic of a Kardashev Type II civilization.

On an even stranger note, Maggie McKee at New Scientist Space tells us that someday Black Holes might be used as quantum supercomputers.

Michael Cassutt at SciFi Weekly looks at evolution and extinction in SF television.

Tomorrow is Pi Day (3/14, get it?). Mathematicians will be celebrating. Museums will be hosting festivities. Schools will have parties. Some people will sing songs. Here's an article from The Independant about the life of Pi. Gravity Lens recommends you watch Pi, eat pie, or (in deference to the heathen St. Patrick's Day later this week) get pie-eyed. Also look up where your birthday appears in Pi, or play the Pi Trivia Game. The Pi drops at 1:59PM, although true math geeks would celebrate at 1:59AM.

Friday, March 10

Jennifer C. Yates of Red Orbit looks at plans to regenerate body parts.

Gizmodo reports that Ray Kurzweil expects cyborgs by 2045. Until then, there are news stories about cyborgs talking to school children, and receiving medals for heroism.

If you want something meatier, here's a pdf file of a paper by Rodrick Wallace which discusses the requirements for AI, and the scary plausibility of psychopathic robots.

Thursday, March 9

Sci Fi Tech tells us about developments in brain-computer interfacing. With any luck future invalids will be a little more communicable than Captain Pike.

Technovelgy informs that the bridge viewscreen has arrived.

And here's some neat future computer workstations.

Retrocrush remembers (with horror) the Aurora Monster Scenes model kits.

It's a robot. It climbs trees.

Wednesday, March 8

Kurt Amacker at Cinescape looks at some negative effects of comic book crossovers.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources discusses buying drinks for comic pros.

I have yet to decide which is cooler: The fact that there's an International Time Capsule Society, or that they compiled a list of the top nine most wanted time capsules that are currently missing.

Tuesday, March 7

We'd like our future now, please: Taylor Dinerman at The Space Review makes the radical suggestion that NASA should finish building the space station (according to plan), while Justin Boron of the Henry Daily Herald wishes science would hurry up with personal robots.

In the meantime, the robotic pack animal has arrived. So have some tiny, useless robots.

Dial B for Blog continues Future Week with some classic comic book robots.

Aberdeen, Scotland is having a tough time trying to erect a memorial to Scotty.

The new Modern Drunkard teaches us The Art of the Shot, looks at the drinks of Gilligan's Island, and introduces us to Rip Griffin, Drinking Detective.

McSweeney's listens in on the Calls of Cthulhu.