Gravity Lens Weblog

Archive March 29 - April 18

Wednesday, April 18

The headline reads "Robot employed as sex club tout."

And if you need another sign of the coming robotic apocalyse, gaze in horror at Clocky, the alarm clock that runs away and hides to get you out of bed.

Ben Goertzel at Kurzweil AI makes the case that we need an "AI Manhattan Project" to bring about self-aware machines within ten years. Via The Speculist.

Tuesday, April 17

The Space Review gives us part two of Dwayne A. Day's essay Heinlein's Ghost.

Things Magazine links to the Lifeboat Foundation's image gallery for the proposed Ark I, described as "a self-sustaining space colony built to ensure humanity could survive disasters that make Earth uninhabitable such as nanoweapon disasters or mishaps in particle accelerator experiments."

Ark II, of course, will be an souped-up RV with a hot asian chick and a monkey.

Let's revisit the Things of Interest entry How to Destroy the Earth.

Who would win? Cloudbase vs. Heli-Carrier?

Monday, April 16

Friend Mark points me to this trailer for a never-produced CGI Thunderbirds project.

And does anyone know if the New Captain Scarlet is ever coming back?

Popular Science has a feature up on The Future of Cars.

While we're here, let's revisit Tales of Future Past's excellent look back at future cars.

A reminder that we are fast approaching May 3rd, the National Day of Reason.

Saturday, April 14

A moment of silence. please, for Mr. Don Ho. Mr. Bali Hai links to the animated video of Don singing Shock the Monkey.

a·nom·a·ly: noun. a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form.

So, why are there so damned many?

Friday, April 13

Space.com reports that the military is putting an internet router into orbit.

UPDATE: In a related story, LiveScience reports on those who want to scrap the internet completely and start over.

A moment of silence, please, for Mr. Roscoe Lee Browne. He was one of my favorite robots.

SF Signal has three links today on the subject of SF genre identity: one on writers and directors fearing the "sci-fi" label, one on the difference between "sci-fi" and science fiction, and one claiming that SF is not the "literature of ideas."

Meanwhile Michael Hinman of Syfy Portal chimes in on the trope of coming back to life.

I really need to know why the skies are not dotted with helium-filled floating wind-powered generators. Or the kite or air-turbine generator designs I've seen.

Thursday, April 12

A moment of silence, please, for Mr. Kurt Vonnegut.

Geekpress links to this Wired News piece titled New Experiment Probes Weird Zone Between Quantum and Classical. Whether this region resembles the Phantom Zone, the Negative Zone, Fluidic Space, the Bleed, or Thirdspace has yet to be determined.

Kurt Amacker of Mania! looks at the recent trend of comics being written by novelists, TV writers, actors and musicians.

Popular Science unveils the winning designs for a Mars flag. There's a slide show with other contenders. It completely ignores the flag from Mars Attacks!

On a related note, CRW Flags has a nice gallery of fictional flags, including Grand Fenwick, the Klingon Empire, and Planet Transexual.

Wednesday, April 11

A traveling Smithsonian exhibit on the work of Jim Henson will be touring the US over the next several years.

Tuesday, April 10

Assorted Items: Thrilling Wonder shows us a spectacular rotating city planned for Dubai.

Michael Cassutt at SciFi Weekly wants SF TV writers to stop doing time travel stories.

Dwayne A. Day of The Space Review looks at the influence of Heinlien's ghost.

Monday, April 9

Gizmodo shows us the future-sexy (and pricey) Bubble Kitchen.

Engadget informs us that Japan is drafting their own version of robot ethics, no doubt to include a clause that all robots be giant.

Saturday, April 7

As you know, Captain, SF Signal links to an analysis of science fiction info-dumps.

Meanwhile, Grow-A-Brain links to Mr. Monkey's Index of Famous Monkeys.

Friday, April 6

Because there is no such thing as too much free time, Paul Rainey has spent the last five months reading every issue of Britain's SF anthology comic 2000 AD and blogging about it.

Via Big Dumb Object.

Thursday, April 5

Assorted Items: Publishers Weekly has an overview of the state of SF and Fantasy.

Prof. Stephen Hawking is scheduled to take a trip on a zero-g simulator later this month.

Boing Boing links to this neat photo-essay on the history of Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies.

We interupt the usual SF-centric snarkiness to send you over to this week's Hartford Advocate, where my beloved Jennifer has penned the funny and disturbing cover story about her brief career in the phone sex industry. She adds a little more at her blog.

Wednesday, April 4

Out of this batch of candidates for season two of Who Wants to be a Superhero?, my vote goes to Omnicron (embedded video).

Tuesday, April 3

Space Stuff: The headline reads Astronaut Will Run Boston Marathon from Space.

Michael Huang at The Space Review revisits the old humans vs. robots in space debate.

Red Orbit reports on next year's 500 day Mars mission simulation.

Popular Science gives us a list of 14 things geeks can teach the world.

Meanwhile, via Warren Ellis, comes Alan Moore's rather exhaustive history of pornography's role in Western Civilization at Arthur Magazine.

Monday, April 2

The "WTF" Award goes to Brian Mller (that's how it's spelled) of the Seattle Weekly who takes the ongoing feud between Harlan Ellison and Fantagraphics and turns it into a war between SF readers and Comic readers.

Sunday, April 1

It is April.

The God of the Month is Chalchiuhtlicue "She of the Jade Skirt."

The Molecule of the Month is yummy Glucose.

Star Trek.com continues it's April Fool's tradition with word that Star Trek is returning to TV as a soap opera, as well as some special remastered episodes.

UPDATE: Locus finally got their April Foolery up, led off with Neil Gaiman One Step Closer to Sainthood.

Saturday, March 31

George Dvorsky has put together a nice little collection of cyborg birth sequences from TV and movies.

Friday, March 30

Thrilling Wonder has a spectacular photo gallery of the assembly of the space shuttle.

Thursday, March 29

SF Signal links to this Helium piece called 10 Reasons why comic books are better than films.

Gizmodo gives us another cool computer workstation.