Gravity Lens Weblog

Thursday, October 14

Meet your 2004 Robot Hall of Fame inductees.

Recommended Readin': George Dvorsky at Better Humans discusses assisted suicide.

Ronald Bailey of Reason defends releasing transgenic species into the wild.

Duncan Walker of BBC reports on theaters using cell phone jamming technology.

William Speed Weed of Popular Science revisits some of the worst jobs in science.

When your out driving, be sure to lookout for aliens, monsters, mermaids, bigfoot, pegasus, dragons, sentients, and sleestaks crossing the road.

Wednesday, October 13

Claude Lalumiere gives us A Brief History of Robert Silverberg at Locus.

Plastic Stuff: Here's pix of the upcoming Conan:The Frost Giant's Daughter PVC set, a glimpse of the first of McFarlane's Dragons, a Randy Bowen Miracleman statue, and a gallery of Godzilla: Final Wars toys.

Trope-Mania: Big weird things entering the solar system (a sub-catagory of the Big Dumb Object). You got Arthur C. Clarke's Rama and Greg Bear's Thistledown. Star Trek gives us V'Ger and the whale probe. There's the vampire nest from Lifeforce. Planetary recently featured an alien habitat. The Justice League encountered a big ship in Heaven's Ladder. I cannot find an online image of Galactus' Taa II worldship. If you find one, pass it on.

And, because they're neat-looking, here's a few others.

Some assorted shapeshifters: Metamorpho, Odo, Maya, Beast Boy, Sandman, The Skrulls, the Phalanx, Morph, the T-1000, and the Wonder Twins. Here's a pair of sites dedicated to transformation stories.

And I've been trying to think of examples of groups of powerful objects, but all I can come up with are the six Infinity Gems, the nine Tears of the Prophets, the six segments of The Key to Time, and the twelve Lost Swords. I know there's more.

Update: John at Texas' Best Grok reminds of the Palantir from Lord of the Rings, and, of course. the rings themselves.

Tuesday, October 12

Assorted Items: Scientific American lists the 50 best Science & Technology websites.

Wired has a cool story about scientists growing a jacket.

Warren Ellis links to a reprint of Spider Jerusalem's Guide to Voting.

Here's a Jack Kirby tribute site that reprints a number of essays by The King himself.

Monday, October 11

Man, I'm bumming about Christopher Reeve when I read that Tim Choate, who played Zathras on Babylon 5, died at the end of last month. "You cannot run out of time..."

Comic Stuff: Warren Ellis has a guest column at Comic Book Resources.

Mike Bullock of Broken Frontier looks at the career of Mike Grell.

And here's a site where the Simpsons teach us about math and mathematicians.

Weekend Blogospherics:

Metafilter takes us back to the burly days of the Golden Age of Iron Men.

Grow-A-Brain invites to gaze at the 2004 Ugliest Couch winners.

Exclamation Mark links to this Field Guide to American Spacecraft.

Eye of the Goof points to past paleontological blunders at Strange Science.

Sunday, October 10

Jacques Derrida is dead. He outlived Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rand by decades, but I now have to wonder: Do we have any philosophers left? And I don't count Noam Chomsky, he's a linguist. Fortunately we still have science-kings like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.

Friday, October 8

Geek Stuff: Wired has a neat story about the new batch of SciFi Channel horror films.

Toy Mania points to a great gallery of homemade action figures from CustomCon 11.

Newsarama has some preview art from TokyoPop's upcoming Star Trek Manga.

Thursday, October 7

The single funniest thing you're likely to see today...

The Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for "positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues" have been announced. Please note that the "other work" category includes comics among the nominees, something sorely lacking in other science fiction and fantasy awards. For further proof go read Lucifer, Red Star, and Global Frequency.

On a related note, Steven Grant tells us about some comics currently under the radar over at Comic Book Resources. Captain Gravity looks especially interesting.

Assorted Items: In the future our computers will have liquid computer chips.

Idle Type sends us to the very cool Non-Verbal Dictionary of body movements.

Memepool links to the awesome Jet-Man Project, and the rather disturbing Hats of Meat.

Wednesday, October 6

This is a month old, but check out the cool picture of Grant Morrison on the front of the latest issue of Arthur magazine.

Recommended Readin': Ronald Bailey of Reason looks at hysteria over sex selection.

Frank Furedi calls for an allout war against "dumbing down" at Spiked Online.

SF Signal links to this Michel Basilières piece addressing why SF isn't taken seriously.

If you can't wait for the futurecar I posted yesterday, I suppose you could build one of these.

The Alien Online informs that Alan Moore is plotting a comic book miniseries called Albion which will feature some long-defunct British characters such as Steel Claw, Kelly's Eye, and Doctor Sin.

While you were sleeping, the new Shatner album was released...

Blogospherics: Geekpress links to this list of the Top Ten Tech Items Inspired by SF.

The Eternal Golden Braid points to a site called Memories of the Space Age, particularly this neat cylindrical 12-man space station concept.

Grow-A-Brain links to this gallery of magazine covers featuring Charles Manson.

Dave Barry sends us to this odd story of Romanian villagers terrorized by disco lights.

Tuesday, October 5

The Segway is so five minutes ago. Jaedene Hudson of the Daily Telegraph test drove the uber-cool future goodness of the Personal Mobility Vehicle. I'm drooling. Very Syd Mead.

Be Afraid: The U.S. Air Force is looking into developing antimatter weapons.

Sorry posts have been so few and far between. I'm knee-deep in the month-long move to Bad Day's new digs, buying a new car, and dealing with the very real possibility of needing dentures in the not-so-distant future.

Here's a trope link-fest you can help me with: Switching bodies. How many shows have used the plot device of two characters exchanging their minds? Episodes of Star Trek, The Prisoner and Red Dwarf leap to mind. There have been many movies about such occurrences between generations, like Freaky Friday, 18 Again, and Like Father Like Son. Superman has found himself in this situation often. I think most fantasy shows have used this gimmick, and I remember a Happy Days episode along those lines. If you find any online examples, please send 'em along.

There's also the comic book gimmick of two people time-sharing a body. Billy Batson would become Captain Marvel while Rick Jones swapped places with Mar-Vell and Micky Moran became Marvelman. Firestorm was the combination of two people. At one point Thor was trading places with Don Blake.

Then of course there's Triplicate Girl, Multiple Man, and Quorum, but that's another post...

Monday, October 4

Congrats to SpaceShipOne!

Neil Gaiman informs us that the Mirrormask site now has an incredible trailer up.

Saturday. October 2

BBC Science has a story about an exhibit to predict the face of the future, while New Scientist explains why the search for facial perfection could be harmful.

Henry Jenkins of Technology Review asks: "Are we living at a moment when yesterday’s ideas about the future are more attractive than our own?"

This reminded me of the James Pinkerton piece at Tech Central Station last week where he put forth the argument that our fascination with "yesterday's future" is a character flaw.

Sorry if I pine for a time of heroism and sweeping scientific achievement rather than the emotion-based ignorance-coddling world of today...

The 2004 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded this week. Among the winners were a paper on the effect of country music on suicide, a study of the scientific validity of the 5-second rule, and a patent for the combover.

Friday, October 1

It is October. The God of the Month is Ga-Oh.

The Molecule of the Month is Butane.

The Quantum Muse Artist of the Month is Andrew Dobell.

UGO Comics gives us its list of the Top 11 Evil Geniuses.

Thursday, September 30

At Space.com Seth Shostak wonders if we are the galaxy's youngest inhabitants. This, of course, fills me with ancient visions of the Great Old Ones, the Guardians, the Celestials, the Watchers, the Vorlons, the Shadows (and the rest of the First Ones), the D'Arsay, the Iconians, the Time Lords, the Progenitors, the Heechee, the Ringworld Engineers, the guys who built Deep Thought, and the guys who built the Monolith.

Exclamation Mark links to this site dedicated to the classic mail-order Toy Soldier sets.

Recommended Geek Readin': Wizard talks to Matt Stone about Team America.

James Patrick Kelly has a column about the state of e-books at Asimov's.

Steven Grant argues that horror comics aren't scary at Comic Book Resources.

Wednesday, September 29

Simon Smith of Better Humans makes the case for life extension for the poor.

Locus links to the alien Americana artwork of Norman Roswell.

Recommended Readin': Paul Brislen of the New Zealand Herald explains why we should be under the influence of science fiction.

Kari Lynn Dean of Wired tells us about one artist's plans to reverse-engineer God while Evan Ratliff updates us on the continuing crusade against evolution.

The Guardian is posting a series of articles that look at The World in 2020, including Mark Leonard's piece on the economic ascension of China, Stephen Bates look at how the church might change, and Sarah Boseley's report on the future of obesity.

While I anxiously await a release date for the Cthulhu action figure I can take comfort that his Presidential Campaign site has gone live. Also, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has a neat page that lets you send vintage-looking Retro-Grams.

Tuesday, September 28

In the (possibly near) future we'll have discs that hold 1000 GB of data.

Assorted Items: SciFi Weekly links to this great Night Gallery tribute site.

Julian Sanchez of Reason looks at the government's tactics to nullify the sex industry.

Space.com tells us there's an even bigger prize available for private spaceflight.

Monday, September 27

Newsarama makes my Monday with a sneak peek at the new Grimjack material. Meanwhile Rich Johnston of Comic Book Resources updates us on the relaunch of Miracleman.

Weekend Blogospherics: Exclamation Mark sends us to The History of Car Logos.

Incoming Signals points to these nifty science fiction needlepoint patterns.

Reality Carnival links to this cool page of physically rendered Escher objects.

With all the recent shrieking over the sanctity of marriage, let's remember such joyful and frightening matrimonial traditions as as the clown wedding, the Elvis wedding, the Star Trek wedding, the Klingon wedding, the Jedi wedding, and the rather disturbing nudist wedding.

To me, there is nothing creepier than a clown funeral, but I may insist that, when the time comes, my pallbearers be dressed as Klingon Elvis.

UPDATE: Geekpress links to this story about Klingons for Kerry.

Saturday, September 25

In the new issue Free Inquiry: Paul Kurtz introduces us to the word Eupraxsophy, Susan Jacoby looks at the current assault on secularism, and David Rand shows us the strange universe of the homosexual Christian.

Meanwhile, James Randi recalls the wild claims of Martin Caidin in his weekly column.

Friday, September 24

Here's a few small link-fests I've been toying with:

Day After Day: The Day I Was Born, The Day We Learned to Think, The Day the Music Died, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, The Day the World Ended, The Day I Swapped my Dad for 2 Goldfish, The Day the Universe Exploded, The Day the Universe Changed, and, my favorite, The Day The Universe Came.

Update: Several people reminded me of the Day of the Triffids, Day of the Dolphin, Day of the Dove, Day of the Jackal, and Day of the Dead (which is also an actual holiday).

Now I suppose I'll have to do a "Night" link-fest...

There have been a rash of "How To" sites swirling around the blogosphere lately. Among them: How to make a violin, a 1:1000 scale model of your city, a solar generator, a coif,

a catapult, a timeline, a pyramid, an inexpensive seismometer, an annoying webpage, a complete map of every thought you think, and a universe that doesn't fall apart two days later.

Man Oh Man Oh Man: Man-Wolf, Man-Thing, Man-Bat, Man-Ape, Man-Bull, Mandroid, Manbot, Man God, Mandark, Manimal, Mancow, Manbomb, Mandarin, Mandrake, Mandrill (not to be confused with Mandrell), Man-at-Arms, Man O' War, Manowar, Manwoman, ManMachine, Mancar, ManDog, Manfish, Mantastic, Mandingo, and Manwhore.

Thursday, September 23

Can I Get an Amen? A gubernatorial candidate says "anyone who does not hold a belief in a higher authority is a very dangerous person.” This is followed by Jimmy Swaggart threatening to kill homosexuals, a man being offended that his library's historical pre-1954 copy of the Pledge doesn't contain the words "Under God," and a Wiccan woman finding her pet parrot has been beheaded by Christians.