Gravity Lens Weblog

Tuesday, December 29

Hope you all had a good Christmas. I got some sweet swag, including Al Williamson's Flash Gordon, which is almost too beautiful to behold.

I'll be spending the rest of the week decompressing, catching up on reading, visiting a few folks I haven't seen in while, and mentally puting this decade to bed.

Meanwhile, io9 gives us a nice chart of the gravity wells in our solar system, and Space.com lists the astronomy milestones for the year.

Monday, December 21

io9 looks year-by-year at the most important (multiple) world events of the past ten years. In comic books.

Meanwhile, Scientific American takes us Looking for Life in the Multiverse.

And if you're willing to download some proprietary viewing software, the Hayden Planetarium has a free digital map of the entire universe available.

Monday, December 14

My friends, it is with great joy and merriment that I unleash onto an unsuspecting world the 15th annual Bad Day Studio Holiday Card. It's a little ditty about the apocalypse and astronomy at the North Pole called On This Longest Night.

A reminder that the first eleven cards are still available in book form.

Let's kick off the countdown to Christmas with a letter from Doctor Doom.

Thursday, December 10

The first Monarch butterflies in space take flight.

And they are not the only things growing in cocoons.

Wednesday, December 2

It is December.

The God of the Month is Mammon, although Tor.com has dedicated December to Cthulhu.

The Molecule of the Month is 1-Octen-3-ol.

SF Signal asked me to participate in their latest Mind Meld, asking what was the best SF I consumed in 2009. My answer has been posted, along with Mike Resnick's, Paul DiFillipo's, John C. Wright's, and Alastair Reynolds'. Esteemed company indeed.

Meanwhile, in space, black holes are creating galaxies, the center of our galaxy could support a mega-civilization, and humans may have difficulty reproducing in zero-gravity.

Sunday, November 29

My shopping is done. My tree is up.

Blogging will be light as I work on finishing this year's Bad Day Holiday Card.

Then I intend to relax a bit and actually enjoy the Christmas season for a change.

I'm uncertain how to go about that, but I'm sure I'll learn...

Friday, November 20

I am not a gamer. Never have been. However I am a broadcaster, and worked for many years on my states Emergency Alert System. So I find it fascinating that there exists the possibility of notifying gamers of real world disasters via their game consoles.

Thursday, November 19

Gerry Canavan links to this news story of a father who spoke only Klingon to his child for three years. He concludes it's a publicity stunt for a Klingon Dictionary.

And yes, there's an app for that.

And the fact that we are approaching the holidays has no bearing whatsoever I my linking to Warren Ellis' new Space Bastard t-shirt.

Thursday, November 12

Currently naking the rounds: Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer at Mighty God King.

And in other parallel reality news, Anthony Bourdain's Alternate Universe is coming.

Then of course there's this from The Onion...

Wednesday, November 11

When the big space telescopes get together in orbit and jam, we get this.

Thursday, November 5

Happy Guy Fawkes Day. Its relevence my be questioned, but it has spurred advances in fireworks technology.

Sunday, November 1

It is November.

The God of the Month is Fortuna.

The Molecule of the Month is Citalopram.

Eye Candy time. The architectural fantasies of Iakov Chernikhov. Via Things.

The buildings of Hugh Ferriss at The Nonist.

The spectacular galleries at Concept Ships and Concept Robots.

The intesity of Alex Nino.

The classic Throne of the Black God by Drulliet.

An awesome Superman vs. Lovecraftian Thing by Bryan Hitch.

Rocket Fiction, the art blog of Paul Rivoche.

Tuesday, October 27

Currently making the rounds: Klingon Kommunist Propaganda.

WETA will soon be releasing Dr Grordbort Presents: Victory -- Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men and Literate Women. Beautiful preview here. The good doctor's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory is a must-have.

io9 gives us 10 Horror Icons who Turned Good.

Monday, October 26

Ryan Dunlavey shows off his mashups of comics, movies and the funny pages.

Pamela B writes in to push her horrifying website Scary Evil Clowns.

Monday, October 19

The Great Britain Post Office is issueing stamps featuring classic album covers.

Unfortunately the U.S. Post Office doesn't offer anything that cool...

Scott Graves sends along Dmitry Chernikov's essay on the economics of Star Trek.

Meanwhile, io9 looks at Law Enforcement of the future.

Wednesday, October 14

The headline reads "US General Demands Robot Army."

Warren Ellis links to this NY Times piece which concedes the possibility that the Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaged by particles it creates in the future.

Sunday, October 11

Promoting the Significant Other: My lady Jennifer makes her humor debut at the Guardian's Comment is Free section with her plan for health care reform.

She also recently spent a day at a convent.

Friday, October 9

Warren Ellis wants to borrow $8000 for his own orbiting death ray.

And I would like to state for the record that the fact that Christmas is coming IN NO WAY correlates to the fact that there now exists a 10-inch tall Robby the Robot USB hub which would fit quite nicely on my desk. Even if the slots are in his ass.

Tuesday, October 6

A Microsoft researcher has redrawn the Periodic Table.

There is also now the first full 3D model of a star going supernova.

Scientists have provided the first quantitative evaluation of planetary habitability. Although it doesn't provide simple labels like "Class M" or "H-Congruous," it's still a start.

Sunday, October 4

Day one of the Singularity Summit was spectacular. Heard talks by Anna Salamon, Anders Sandberg, David Chalmers, Steven Wolfram (who discussed the development of Wolfram|Alpha. One clip is online already), Stuart Hammeroff, and Ray Kurzweil. among others. Very thought provoking. Will AI want to kill us? Will we want it to? I'm also excited about the Open Cognition Project, an an open-source Artificial General Intelligence framework. Very cool.

Saw the hypnotic AI video art software Electric Sheep, which I couldn't stop watching.

Also visited the Society of Illustrators currently displaying the Spectrum exhibition, which I cannot recommend enough. It runs until October 17.

In the meantime I missed 24 Hour Comics Day.

Thursday, October 1

The God of the Month is Herakles.

The Molecule of the Month is Strychnine.

Tuesday, September 29

The headline reads "The Rise of Sex Robots and Pleasure Machines."

Computers can be made faster using a Time Lens.

Over at The New Statesman, Toby Litt has discovered that the greatest science fiction imagines universes wholly unlike anything we have ever seen before. In other news, the best mysteries involved something being solved, and the best comedies are funny.

At More Intelligent Life, Edward Carr mourns the last days of the polymath.

Alas, there's no mention of Clark Savage, John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr, Roy Hinkley, Hubert J. Farnsworth, Clayton Forrester, Reed Richards, Victor Von Doom, Derek Flint, Buckaroo Banzai, Tom Strong, Angus MacGyver, or Charley Gordon.

Tuesday, September 22

Via Geekpress, a plan to use the entire galaxy as an observatory.

io9 gives us a trippy gallery of futuristic proposals for Boston's stalled construction sites.

Sunday, September 13

Ten years ago today the moon was hurled out of Earth orbit. Never forget. Everybody dance.

Weekly World News is coming to comics.

Thursday, September 3

At Wired UK, Warren Ellis tells us why children should be made to watch The Thunderbirds.

Wednesday, September 2

It is September.

The God of the Month is Sophia.

The Molecule of the Month is Anandamide.

My favorite fallout from the Disney/Marvel deal is the coming of Gooflactus.

Wednesday, August 26

I've posted in the past about Longplayer, the 1000 year long music composition that began in 2000. Now a 1000 minute part of it is going to be performed live.

Meanwhile John Cage's Organ²/ASLSP is still going...