Gravity Lens Weblog

Archive: April 19 - May 18

Friday, May 18

Seven months 'til Christmas: The 40-foot tall flame-throwing Robosaurus is for sale.

Two links from Warren Ellis: Jess Nevins' excellent An Alternate History of Chinese Science Fiction, and a short Calvin & Hobbes animated piece done by an italian student, with subtitles.

Al Globus of Space.com makes the case for gathering solar power from orbit.

Thursday, May 17

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources shares his thoughts on the relationship between comics and movies.

Gizmodo shows us a planned skyscraper that doubles as a windmill.

Wednesday, May 16

It's Official: Accident-prone people do exist.

Tuesday, May 15

Assorted Items: Wayne Eleazer of The Space Review gives us his thoughts on how to garner support for space exploration.

David Tenenbaum of Astrobiology reports on the future of biological power systems.

Ker Than of Space.com tells us our solar system may end up in the Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.

Genre awards given out over the weekend: the Eagles, the Saturns, amd the Nebulas.

Monday, May 14

SF author Charles Stross has posted a long and excellent essay on the shape of the future.

This is shaping up to be a crazy week for me. Lots of stuff I want to get done. It may affect my post output so bear with me.

Friday, May 11

NASA has unveiled Hubble's successor, has produced a trailer for its planned return to the moon, and is also apparently seeking out the planet Vulcan.

And I know you'll all appreciate the fact that James Doohan's ashes (along with many others) made an unscheduled landing in the New Mexico desert.

Thursday, May 10

Assorted Items: Michael Anissimov of Accelerating Future makes the case that the ability to upload the human mind will make space exploration pointless. (via Futurismic)

GeekPress links to this Scientific American piece on a possible artificial wormhole design.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources looks at the viability of the comic shop.

Wednesday, May 9

Recommended Readin': Space.com reports that rocket stages heading towards interstellar space may harbor living bacteria.

Metafilter has linked to the funny and informative Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy, a compendium of SF tropes and the assorted obstacles they face in becoming reality.

Steve Conner of Red Orbit chimes in on the Human vs. Robot space exploration question.

Tom Simonite of New Scientist tells us that researchers are testing robots that "guess."

Warren Ellis links to the torrent info page for Perviyje na lune, "A mockumentary about the first Russian space voyage, supposedly accomplished in 1938."

Tuesday, May 8

SciFi Tech gives us another sweet piece of future furniture.

Monday, May 7

Doug Vakoch of Space.com reports on a recent conference about bridging cultural gaps between humans and extraterrestrials.

And while we're bridging gaps, here's Steve & Eydie singing Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun.

(Via Coudal)

Sunday, May 6

Thrilling Wonder gives us a glimpse at some very retrosexy airplane/hovercraft hybrids designed by the Soviets during the Cold War.

While we're here let's revisit Deepcold's gallery of Russian Cold War military spacecraft.

Saturday, May 5

Assorted Items: Today is Free Comic Book Day.

SciFi Tech gives us Ten Techs That Give You Superpowers.

SF Signal links to this link-rich Project Rho page of star maps in science fiction.

Speaking of maps, GeekPress sends us to this map of online communities.

Friday, May 4

Popular Science looks back at a half-century of lunar exploration.

Space.com reports that NASA is finally getting around to the question of what to do if someone dies in space.

Thursday, May 3

Kurt Amacker at Mania looks at the economics of Free Comic Book Day, while Johanna Draper-Carlson at Comics Worth Reading looks at some of the titles slated.

By the way, Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday, May 5.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources talks about the pitfalls of announcing upcoming projects too early.

Your homework is to compare and contrast this map of Heaven and Hell from Strange Harvest with this map of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology posted at The Immortal Thor.

Discuss.

Wednesday, May 2

The headline reads "Army developing self-driving robot vehicle."

Comic Book Resources reports that artist Joe DeVito is going to do a King Kong comic based on his excellent book Kong: King of Skull Island.

Tuesday, May 1

It is May.

The Molecule of the Month is Acetyl Coenzyme-A.

The God of the Month is The Great Rabbit.

The British Interplanetary Society is calling for papers on the feasibility of FTL drive.

Meanwhile Taylor Dinerman at The Space Review looks and Britain's lack of space program.

Mark Dawidziak of SunJournal reports that the Masters of Science Fiction anthology series is currently on the shelf, despite having six episodes completed.

Monday, April 30

Popular Science has posted a feature examining how thier past predictions about future cars have panned out.

Friday, April 27

Space.com reports on Prof. Stephen Hawking's zero-gee flight yesterday.

UPDATE: Awesome photo here.

Apparently Bob Guccione Jr. wants to revive Omni Magazine.

Relive the joy at the OmniShrine Wiki.

Thursday, April 26

Gwyneth Jones looks at the rash of SF tropes that are fast becoming reality at The Guardian.

Meanwhile, George Dvorsky asks if the world is ready for cyborg athletes.

Word is spreading. It's official. Reality doesn't exist.

Steven Grant at Comic Book Resources looks ahead at another summer full of comic book movies.

Kurt Amacker at Mania chimes in as well.

Wednesday, April 25

In my favorite news story in recent weeks, and I quote, "Boeing Business Jets approached DesignworksUSA and challenged the firm to create a conceptual 787 aircraft interior for a fictitious, affluent, Russian client in his mid-thirties." The results are awesome.

Paleo-Future posts this great gallery of postcards circa 1900 about Life in the Year 2000.

The headline reads: Should the human race be worried by the rise of robots?

And while we're prepping for cliched SF scenarios, here's An Introduction to Planetary Defense.

Tuesday, April 24

Scientific American is reporting that Kryptonite actually exists. Time to remove it fom the list of fictional elements.