He, She, It: Engendering Machines, Gendering Intelligence

Traditional gender binaries such as male/female, science/nature, mind/body, are replayed and reinforced again and again in sci-fi films, in which (male) scientific creativity is continually represented as a dangerous affront to “natural” human (female) values. Supercomputers in film are created by male scientists–I can think of no exceptions–and what makes them valuable (according to their…

Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor

Let me just come at this one from sort of a big picture point of view. (the sound of a million Slashdot readers hitting the “back” button…) —Neal Stephenson —Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor (Slashdot) Link found via MGK. Similar:York Plays 2025: Five cameras, adding up to ~100 hours of footage.Study finds AI tools…

Riverside feels 'Wrath of Con'

William Shatner’s low-budget sci-fi flick, “Invasion Iowa,” that was supposedly filming in Riverside, turned out to be an elaborate hoax. To borrow the phrase from MTV, the entire town was “punk’d.” Yes, William Shatner is there, and yes, there is a film crew, but the whole thing wasn’t for a movie, but for a “reality”…

Shatner, Nimoy team up on sci-fi project

William Shatner, who played the commander of the starship USS Enterprise in the ’60s Star Trek series, arrived in Riverside [Iowa] Tuesday to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget, sci-fi movie he wrote with Star Trek co-star, Leonard Nimoy…..Although Kirk’s hometown was never mentioned in the TV series, Gene Roddenberry, the show’s…

Naked Wookiees and broken R2-D2s

“Yoda’s philosophy was quite simplistic. ‘If you get angry, you’re gonna lose.’ ‘Don’t try, do.’ He has a basic philosophy that is very charming. Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more.” —Irvin Kershner, mentor of George Lucas. —Naked Wookiees and broken R2-D2s (CNN/AP) Similar:York Plays 2025: Five cameras,…

Radio 4 revives Hitchhiker's game

A computer game written by Douglas Adams is being revived to coincide with a new BBC Radio 4 series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The text adventure will appear on the station’s website and was described by the late Adams as “the first game to move beyond being ‘user friendly’”. “It’s actually ‘user…

Scotty Says Goodbye

“Beam Me Up Scotty…One Last Time” is the quite-serious title to a three-day event at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel billed as a farewell to the actor who, as fiery Montgomery Scott, ran the U.S.S. Enterprise’s engineering deck on Trek’s 1966-69 flagship series and six big-screen adventures. —Joal Ryan —Scotty Says Goodbye (E! Online) I managed to…

Oscar-winning composer Goldsmith dies

Academy Award-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith, who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from the “Star Trek” and “Planet of the Apes” series to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Dr. Kildare,” has died. He was 75. —Oscar-winning composer Goldsmith dies (CNN/AP) Similar:York Plays 2025: Five cameras, adding up to ~100…

Guide to the Early Star Trek Novels

Today STAR TREK spans six television series, ten feature films and several interactive CD-ROMs. In addition, the STAR TREK afficionado had hundreds of novels to choose from with dozens more being published each year. It was not always thus. Those of us who were loving STAR TREK in the late 1960’s and into he early…

Beowulf Goes To Movies

Warner Brothers is developing a film based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Newcomer Matthew Sand will write the script for the film version of the story, about a knight who takes up the sword against a monster. The eighth-century tale centers on Beowulf of the Geats, who is called…

10 Dumb Moments in Sci-Fi Cinema

Once people overhear some pale guy with wizard hair explaining how a light saber simply isn’t possible, as the exposed plasma from the device would irradiate every living organism with a 5-kilometer radius, what are people supposed to think? “Sexy?” Yet, part of being a sci-fi fan is being its harshest critic, and so we…

Yoda 'speaks like Anglo-Saxon'

Mr Crystal, a professor of linguistics at Reading University for 20 years, said Yoda – a Jedi master in the Star Wars films – was a good way to get children interested in how preferences in English word order changed from the Anglo-Saxon era to that of Middle English. —Finlo Rohrer —Yoda ‘speaks like Anglo-Saxon’ (BBC)…

HHGG Interview with Myself

“When Zaphod first comes out of the temple and is approached by well wishers, the banana alien on the mole-horse needs to replace the multi-headed groupie.” You just don’t get notes like this every day. —Kerry Kirkpatrick —HHGG Interview with Myself  (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [Official Blog]) Similar:York Plays 2025: Five cameras, adding up…

Technology: Your Next Videogame

But the surprise for Xbox was Advent Rising from Majesco, a super-stylish “Star Wars”-meets-“The Matrix” action adventure, which is being written by sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, best known for the “Ender’s Game” series of novels. When writers of his caliber want to work on videogames, it’s more proof that electronic entertainment is no passing…

The Excuse Machine

Excuses remind me of The Trouble with Tribbles from the early Star Trek series: a space trader, Cyrano Jones, gives Uhura a purring ball of fluff known as a tribble. Charmed by the creature, Uhura takes it back to the Enterprise. However, as McCoy soon learns, tribbles are born pregnant and the more they eat…

Geography's conquest of history in The Diamond Age

Stephenson’s immensely creative novel offers a story about the disequilibrium between space and time, about reconstituting subjectivity in a world where geography has conquered history, and about the importance of narrative in the creation of subject positions. In this chapter, we argue that geography’s conquest of history defines the struggles over culture, identity, subjectivity, and…