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Trivia Thursday
This Donald Kingsbury novel involves a colony on an arid world in cultural extremis because of its lack of resources, and the central characters becoming involved with a challenge to its established order. Which author coined the term “cyberspace?” What was the name of the ship’s computer in Alien? Who was the main character in…
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They’re Probably Not Parasitic Slug-Things
There’s new evidence of consumption of hydrogen that may suggest life on Titan.
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A Real Electric Monk
An “I-Fairy” robot presided at a wedding ceremony in Tokyo last Sunday. The groom is a professor of robotics and the bride is an employee at Sanrio’s humanoid robotics division (although a BoingBoing commenter had a more plausible theory). The little robot’s normal job is to conduct people around museums, but Sanrio reprogrammed it for…
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Four Girls, One Orbit
A rather niche record was set yesterday when the shuttle launched: The most women in orbit at the same time. Three of the seven astronauts on Discovery are women, and there’s a woman on the International Space Station. The four are scheduled to rendezvous on Wednesday and will form “the largest gathering of women in…
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“The Laundry” to be an RPG
Charles Stross has announced that Cubicle 7 Entertainment is going to to publish a role-playing game based on his Laundry Files series. The Laundry is a branch of the British secret service, tasked to prevent hideous alien gods from wiping out all life on Earth. Players take the part of Laundry agents, cleaning up the…
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Trivia Thursday
This 1979 film marks Mel Gibson’s first widely-distributed appearance on the U.S. silver screen. Mel played Max Rockatansky, a policeman in a post-apocalyptic society bent on revenging the deaths of his wife and child at the hands of a renegade motorcycle gang. This 1963 novel by Clifford D. Simak concerns a Civil War veteran who…
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Help Out Peter Watts
Peter Watts, Hugo-nominated author of Blindsight, had a very bad experience at the U.S./Canadian border, and may need some legal help. His account of the incident is here. Even if this is a simple mistake, it’s going to be costly for him to deal with. John Scalzi and BoingBoing have information on how to help…
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This is Either Awesome News…
…or an enormous scam. Deciding which is left as an exercise for the reader. Claiming a huge injection of funds (like, $3 billion) from an anonymous benefactor, a Barcelona-based company called Galactic Suite, Ltd. is touting their plan to have a functioning space hotel in orbit by 2012. A three-night stay will cost $4.4 million),…
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DIY Steampunk Maps
Steampunk fan Chris Howard has posted a short tutorial on turning vintage city maps into maps of fictional places for use in gaming or as costume accessories. His method assumes you have some artistic talent, but you could do something similar with clip art. Obviously, you don’t have to go steampunk. You could create maps…
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Our Blogiversary
As of today, there have been a full three years of this nonsense. We haven’t missed a weekday post since Christmas of 2006. Clearly, we need a hobby. Or possibly sedation. To celebrate, if you comment on a post this week you’ll be entered in a random drawing to win an O*W*C mug, complete with…