Sad news for Trek fans. Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and the actress who portrayed Nurse Chapel on the original science-fiction television series, died Thursday of leukemia, according to the family. —NBC For more, see her biography on Wikipedia. Similar:The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode…
I’m willing to give the new Star Trek a chance. I loved Babylon 5 during its initial run, and I’m intrigued by the possibility of a re-imagined Trek. Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer…
Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer t…The press lobby is going feral—ignore itJanuary 6th … the board game?Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…
From Wired: Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer t…The press lobby is going feral—ignore itJanuary 6th … the board game?Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…
This is from the robots category of Paleo-Future, which also has categories devoted to picturephones, jetpacks, and each decade’s collected futurism (that is, see what our future looked like to people writing in the 1880s, the 1930s, or the 1980s). Try as it might the robot could not make its desired turn. Its little broken wheel…
CMJ_Ewoks.mp3 (2 min 10 sec; 2.2Mb) The audio is a little over 2 minutes long. Listen to my daughter’s final tearful, generous, heart-felt wish for George Lucas, and then take a look at the chronology below. Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985) Howard the Duck (1986) Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now…
At the beginning of last semester, when I called roll in a class that included a student with the last name “Gearhart,” I have been telling steampunk bedtime stories to my kids (Peter, 10; and Carolyn, 6). Each night, after my daughter has finished the tooth-brushing and prayer-saying, in total darkness I try to advance…
Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer t…Is AI making us less intelligent?January 6th … the board game?Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…
Our provost sent this link to English faculty members this morning. One of my recent juniors was particularly eloquent on the subject. After having sat in my classroom for a year forcefully projecting his boredom, he started an e-mail dialogue with me over the summer. “The reason for studying fiction escapes me,” he wrote. “Why…
I need a new office chair. Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer t…January 6th … the board game?Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…Selling Point (Audio Drama)For some reason, I saw a bump in traffic to…
Great news for fans of robot history and cinema history: Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,…
According to Metafilter, “Nothing signals the death of a trend like an article in the NY Times Style section.” Even his clothing — an unlikely fusion of current and neo-Edwardian pieces (polo shirt, gentleman’s waistcoat, paisley bow tie), not unlike those he plans to sell this summer at his own Manhattan haberdashery — is an…
Guardian: First Battlestar Galactica was reinvented as a must-watch TV show and clever allegory for US foreign policy post-9/11. Then the Doctor returned from Gallifrey to make sci-fi cool and revive mainstream family viewing. Now Sky One is hoping to continue the successful reinvention of the genre with a multimillion-pound remake of the 1970s British…
Yesterday was my daughter’s sixth birthday. My wife told me that there was a horrific meltdown at the store when the ice cream cake they picked up did not match the picture in the catalog. Screams, tears, and a half hour of sobbing. Last night, I told my daughter the story of The Birthday Party…
I love the retrofuture. The year I was born, 1968, Mechanix Illustrated offered this prediction of life in the year 2008. I’m still waiting for my flying car, but some of the other predictions were remarkably accurate. The single most important item in 2008 households is the computer. These electronic brains govern everything from meal…
Sky News: The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote more than 100 books including 2001: A Space Odyssey, has died in Sri Lanka at the age of 90, according to an aide. Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season…
It probably only makes sense if you pay attention to Lego sets, but its made my kids and me all laugh. Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer t…January 6th … the board game?Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's…
CBS makes up for canceling Star Trek almost 40 years ago, by publishing the full video of every episode on their website. (Sigh. Yet another cool thing I won’t have time for.) Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.The Tyranny of Now (Appreciation of Harold Innis)The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode…
When steampunk was speculative fiction, not charmingly retro… Edgar Allan Poe pulbished this mock news story in the New York Sun. The Atlantic has been actually crossed in a Balloon; and this too without difficulty — without any great apparent danger — with thorough control of the machine — and in the inconceivably brief period…
Robots gloating, and occasionally philosophizing, over their decision to destroy the humans. Love the binary solo. The guy on the left does an excellent imitation of a standard PC speech synthesizer voice. Overall, this is a great send-up of the “arrogant humans create robots who turn on them” meme (which was first widely spread by…