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The CFSC is Getting Fancy
The Crotchety Old Fan’s Classic Science Fiction Channel is expanding its offerings, and he’s also experimenting with video playlists. The first one, “ARMAGEDDON OUTTA HERE,” kicks off at midnight with A Boy and His Dog and progresses through 24 hours of gems like The Omega Man, Day of the Triffids, and Dr. Strangelove. See this…
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Google Mars
:::sigh::: Can we just declare the Google guys the Supreme Overlords of Earth and get it over with? The latest version of Google Earth includes the ability to explore Mars. With Mars in Google Earth, you can: Be the first human being to view images downloaded by NASA just hours ago, in the Live from…
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We Know Where You Live
Wired has a rather arresting article on the “Location-Aware Lifestyle” we’re now living with social media sites and software like Flickr, Twitter, blogs, FaceBook, etc., etc., etc. To test whether I was being paranoid, I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with…
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Digital SF Art
PSDTUTS–an awesome resource for Photoshop tutorials and a good place to make those of us who think we know a thing or two about Photoshop consider resigning in shame–has a roundup of “digital paintings,” heavy on the science fiction and fantasy. Their digital nature make them seem hyper-realistic, and they’re eye-poppingly lovely. Each entry also…
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The Creepiest Idea I’ve Heard in a While
The U.S. Department of Defense has published a research proposal “To develop a highly interactive PC or web-based application to allow family members to verbally interact with ‘virtual’ renditions of deployed Service Members.” The purpose is to let small children interact with “Mommy” or “Daddy” over a webcam, even when the real parent is deployed…
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SF at Dark Roasted Blend
Did you know that Dark Roasted Blend had a whole sub-site devoted to science fiction? Then why didn’t you tell me? Because it’s huge. And kind of awesome. They boast reviews and ratings of over 10,000 SF&F books and stories, all kinds of “best of” lists, pulp artwork, author interviews, and other time-wasters beyond counting.…
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Happy Birthday Difference Engine
On December 23, 1834, Charles Babbage announced the invention of the Analytical Engine. According to London’s Science Museum: The designs for the Analytical Engine include almost all the essential logical features of a modern electronic digital computer. The engine was programmable using punched cards. It had a “store” where numbers and intermediate results could be…
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Google to Help Track Spread of Flu
Here’s a rather awesome use of data mining that had never even occurred to me, which is why Page and Brin are gazillionaires and I am not. People who are sick have a tendency to type their symptoms into an internet search engine. Google has been looking at spikes in searches on flu symptoms, and…
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
A Cognitive Science researcher at Rensselaer is plumbing the roots of human evil by developing a computer program to simulate it. Selmer Bringsjord has created a checklist to determine whether someone is “demonic,” and is working with a team of grad students to create a computerized representation of a truly evil person. To be truly…
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Wait…I’m Not Getting Paid for This?
Andrew Keen, self-proclaimed “leading contemporary critic of the Internet,” recently wrote an article claiming that current economic hardship heralds the death of “free content” on the ‘Net. So how will today’s brutal economic climate change the Web 2.0 “free” economy? It will result in the rise of online media businesses that reward their contributors with…