Archive: May 19 - June 22

Gravity Lens Main Page

Friday, June 22

The Free Geek writes in to point us to his DIY Guide to Becoming a (Real) Cyborg.

Last week Charles Stross' essay on the futility of space colonization got a little web-buzz. Here are responses from George Dvorsky and Centauri Dreams.

Thursday, June 21

Make with the clicky: Futurismic links to this Forbes story about the Ghost Cities of 2100.

SF Signal sends us to gaze in horror at an exhibit consisting solely of paintings of William Shatner.

Technovelgy gives us yet another exoskeleton. I say this to remind you that we live in a world where I've lost count of how many exoskeleton suits there are.

Wednesday, June 20

Assorted Items: The addictive site Starship Dimensions has added a SciFi Character page where you can compare sizes.

Website @ the End of the Universe links to a video showing what it's like when a Dalek comes home from a long day at work.

Tales of Future Past has put up features to SF classics Moonbase 3, Conquest of Space, and Doppelganger (AKA Journey to the Far Side of the Sun)

Wizard gives us Great Moments in Skrull History.

Tuesday, June 19

The headline reads: "Robot 'Minister' Performs Wedding Ceremony."

Monday, June 18

Always on the lookout for ideas for my yearly Holiday Cards, I was most impressed with the pix of McFarlane's upcoming Twisted Christmas action figure line. I especially like the reindeer and Mrs. Claus.

Author Talk: Karl Schroeder tells us we live in a world where you can now transport objects back and forth between the real world and the virtual one.

Meanwhile, Charles Stross explains why space colonization is futile.

Friday, June 15

ScienCentral looks at the state of household robots.

Because there is no such thing as too much free time, SF Signal links to a site simply called Bad Spock Drawings.

And how sad is it that the characters in Gold Key Star Trek comics looked more accurate than just about any comic version since?

Thursday, June 14

New Scientist Space reports that jets of matter shooting out of dying suns have been clocked at more than 99.999% the speed of light.

Wednesday, June 13

A moment of silence, please, for Mr. Don Herbert, AKA Mr. Wizard.

Retrocrush gives us a list of Kickass sidekicks. the Brat Pack are not listed. Nor are Altar

Boy, Jan & Jace, Mini-Me, or J. Wellington Wimpy.

Here, or course, is your obligatory Wikipedia list of sidekicks.

India's richest man is building a 60 story home. Neat retro-cool image here.

Your desktop DNA analyzer has arrived, $14,999.

Tuesday, June 12

Because there is apparently nothing left to invent, SciFi Tech shows us a cellphone that's also a lighter, and an umbrella that links tot he internet.

Monday, June 11

SF Signal wants to know: Are You a Superfan?

UPDATE: on a related note, here's an interview with a guy who makes costumes of entire scenes and settings from movies.

Friday, June 8

Assorted Items: David Lynch's Dune, overdubbed.

Astrobiology examines the geology of Jules Verne's science fiction.

Yesterday's big science news was a demonstration of wireless power.

Thursday, June 7

Private citizens Tom and Tina Sjogren have announced that they intent to go to Mars by 2014.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources takes a look at the dilemmas facing the creative and business end of comics.

Wednesday, June 6

The British officially believe in extraterrestrial intelligence.

Tuesday, June 5

We've got about a month before the New  7 Wonders of the World are voted for on 07/07/07.

Here's the original. Here's a list of things decreed the Eighth Wonder.

And here's the 7 Wonder Crimes of Gotham City.

Hey, wasn't the world gonna end or something on 06/06/06? Whatever happened with that?

Monday, June 4

Warren Ellis links to Steam Trek: The Moving Picture.

Man Photoshops himself into Homer Simpson.

Sunday, June 3

Catching up on the mailbag: George Dvorsky lets me know about DARPA's cyborg moth project. George also has a piece posted about the Drake Equation being obsolete.

(On a related note, check out Stuart Atkinson's piece at Space.com discussing whether we would recognize alien signals.)

Scott Graves informs me that the kidney donor reality show story I linked to was a hoax.

And a few folks pointed me to the new Babylon 5: Lost Tales trailer (click on "Lost Tales")

SF Signal send us to the upcoming Blog Like it's the End of the World event on June 13.

I will not be participating, as it is a Zombie-centric event. I'd be much more interested if the world was ending in a more cosmic manner.

Here's your Wikipedia list of Famous Planet Killers.

The headline reads: "Dancing robot choreographs itself."

While we're on the subject, Futurismic links to this disturbing robot that acts like an infant.

Friday, June 1

It is June.

The God of the Month is Mati Syra Zemlya, `Mother Moist Earth.´

The Molecules of the Month are Lutein and Zeaxanthin.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources looks at the concept of comics "selling out" to Hollywood.

Thursday, May 31

Homeland Security now needs science fiction authors to help in the war on terror.

Our Bodies, Ourselves: We live in a world where human tissue is stockpiled, brain matter and computer hardware are being merged, sensors implanted in your stomach can monitor what you eat, Russia is afraid of weapons biologically tuned to only kill Russians, and designer vaginas are hot.

Um, apparently the debate that the Earth orbits the Sun is still raging.

No word about the state of Counter-Earth yet.

Wednesday, May 30

Via SF Signal, Bill Gibron of PopMatters mourns the death of serious SF films. I'd go off on a rant about how film hasn't even made a cursory attempt to keep up with the state of SF literature, so intent are they to blow things up and strip the carcass of Philip K. Dick, but I'm very tired.

There's an excellent essay by Rudy Rucker in Newsweek about repurposing biology to our own ends.

While we're waiting for season two of Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, we can get our reality TV fix with I'm Dying! Who Gets My Kidney?

Tuesday, May 29

The headline reads: "Will robots take over architecture?"

Assorted Items: Wil McCarthy of SciFi Weekly gives us the science of the Silver Surfer.

Annalee Newitz of Wired asks why science fiction is so white.

Technovelgy gives us an inflatable lunar habitat.

Daily Southtown profiles one of the few remaining speakers of Esperanto.

Monday, May 28

The blog Fogonazos has a neat picture gallery of prototype VTOL aircraft.

Friday, May 25

Today is Towel Day.

Behold! The Blog of MODOK!

Thursday, May 24

Newsarama attempts to interview Harlan Ellison about the long-delayed release of Dream Corridor Vol 2. Part one of three.

Reality Carnival links to thin neat slideshow called The Future of Our World, which covers the forming of a new Pangaea, the Milky Way and Andromeda colliding, and much more.

Tuesday, May 22

Geekpress links to this usefull Nature article How to Survive a Black Hole, while Dave Mosher of Space.com tells us how to weigh a black hole.

Frank Stratford of The Space Review wants to get people excited about a Mars mission.

Monday, May 21

I haven't done an image flood in a while, so here's a gaggle of visual interpretations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

And here's the obligatory Wikipedia page on their cultural usage.

I demand an explanation as to why, when I do a Google image search of the word "Ragnarok," I get page after page of all this crap. That's pathetic.

Sunday, May 20

The News Tribune tells us the Klingon invasion began long ago.

I also found this old but interesting essay by Paul Joseph and Sharon Carton called Law of the Federation: Images of Law, Lawyers, and the Legal System in Star Trek the Next Generation.

Bad Day Studio            Bar & Grill