Gravity Lens Weblog

Archive: October 27 - November 26

Sunday, November 26

A moment of silence, please, for legendary comic book artist Dave Cockrum.

Space.com has details on the astronaut who hit the golf ball off the ISS on Thanksgiving.

The headline raeds: "It Walks and Talks, But Can a Robot Be Your Friend?"

Saturday, November 25

Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams tells we may not have received signals from alien intelligences because sending them is too damned expensive.

Kenn Brown of Mondolithic wrote in to tell us that they has a limited number of neat minted coins sporting their depiction of a space elevator available on eBay.

Wednesday, November 22

Assorted Items: CNet gives us their list of the Top Ten Girl Geeks.

Kurt Amacker at Mania (formerly Cinescape) tacles the comic book conundrum of buying singles, trades, and hardcovers.

Darnell Clayton at Colony Worlds gives us ten reasons not to build a space elevator.

Tuesday, November 21

Currently making the rounds: the Jack Chick tract parody Galactus is Coming! This is a nice companion piece to to the Cthulhu parody from a few years back.

Recommended Readin':

Greg Theakston from Alter Ego has a nice tribute to Alex Toth over at Newsarama.

Michael Blowhard at 2 Blowhards looks at the birth of modern pulp: Gold Medal Books.

Michael Cassutt at SciFi Weekly mourns the passing of three SF legends.

Monday, November 20

Alright, after some chiding from the regulars over at the Bar & Grill, I have spent the last few weeks putting together a compilation of all eleven of the Bad Day Studio Holiday Cards in book form. The book, called Solstice Chronicles, is now officially available at the print-on-demand service Lulu.com.

It is 46 pages in a paperback comic book-sized format. It's $7.95 (plus shipping) for the print version, or $2.50 as a PDF download. There's also a preview of two of the stories posted on the site.

Caveat/Disclaimer/Warning: I do not yet have a proof of the finished product in hand yet, and cannot vouch for its production quality. I hope to have one before Thanksgiving. If it needs any revisions or corrections I will make them immediately. The shipping page at Lulu says it can get a paperback out in 2-3 days, so even if it is a week before a revised edition is available there should be plenty of time to get them before the holidays.

This is not an shameless attempt to compel you to buy multiple copies. If I wanted to do that I would have gone the "multiple covers" route.

Victoria, British Columbia has opted to combat nighttime public urination by installing outdoor urinals that rise from the sidewalks at night and retract back underground during the day.

There's a demo video at the bottom of the story.

Saturday, November 18

I'm back. It was a mildly hectic week. I traveled up to Burlington VT and the Quechee Gorge (where I ate at the wonderful Farmer's Diner), found out a couple folks I knew had died, got some work done on this year's holiday card, and attended MegaFest.

I also finished my Christmas shopping.

Feel free to beam me your hate. It nourishes me...

New Scientist has a neat feature of forecasts for the next 50 years.

Monday, November 13

On November 13th, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of residence.

James Oberg of The Space Review looks at the state of space weaponry.

I'm off this week, and will be checking in when time and connectivity allow.

Friday, November 10

Moments of silence, please, for Mr. Jack Palance and Mr. Jack Williamson.

Word is spreading that Alan Moore will be making a guest appearance on The Simpsons.

Thursday, November 9

Seth Shostak at Space.com looks at the idea of picking up alien TV signals.

Phil McKenna of New Scientist Space tells us How The Moon Shed its Skin.

George Dvorsky links to this awesome creepy mockumentary about Metalosis Maligna, a fictional disease which causes medical implants to take over and transform bodies. (link goes to page where you can download the 54 mb Quicktime movie)

It puts me in the mood for Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

Here's the page for very funny The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases.

And here's Wikipedia entry on ficticious diseases.

The headline reads "Robot Identifies Human Flesh As Bacon."

Wednesday, November 8

Futurismic links to the OpenHuman project, where you can post your "source code."

Tuesday, November 7

Popular Science has put up their Best of What's New for the year.

Meanwhile Time Magazine has named YouTube as Invention of the Year.

I will withold my opinion on such declarations being made while there are two whole months left to the year...

Monday, November 6

Assorted Items: Information Society Technologies has a piece up about a system for transmitting tactile information over the internet.

Craig Hogan at American Scientist tells about the principles and technology involved in listening to the sounds of spacetime.

Robin Pogrebin of the NY Times reports on a competition to envision New York City a hundred years from now.

Sunday, November 5

Here's the disturbing and thoroughly not-safe-for-work teaser for Sex Life of Robots.

Thursday, November 2

GeekPress links to this video of a large-scale Mentos/Diet Coke chain reaction set up like a set of dominoes. Of course, I am still waiting for someone to complain about all the aspertame groundwater contamination this fad has caused...

I cannot resist a headline that reads "Mate like crazy and let the sperm fight it out."

Wednesday, November 1

It is November.

The God of the Month is Oya, Wind and Change.

The Molecule of the Month is Pentacene.

The headline reads "A Satellite Orbiting Earth is Learning to Think for Itself."

No word if SID or Brother Eye are on the horizon.

Tuesday, October 31

From Warren Ellis: We live in a world where a corrupt Korean scientist tried to buy mammoth cells from the Russian Mafia so he could clone it.

If that's not enough future shock: SciFi Tech tells us Japanese robot suits may be available for sale in 2008.

And Futurismic tells us NASA is considering technology similar to Fremen Stillsuits for future space missions. (Hat tip to George Dvorsky)

Monday, October 30

Mark R. Leeper at SF Crowsnest looks back at the mystique of the fifties science fiction film.

Saturday, October 28

When I was young, I was told the Cavity Creeps were assaulting my teeth (video).

Now it seems that everything wrong with me is represented by a cartoon. First it was this fungus living under my toenails, now I have a green mucus family housed in my lungs. There's an ad for Imitrex featuring a migraine monster, but I cannot find him online.

Here's a piece on the resurgence of animated pitchmen.