This four-port USB hub is shaped like Dr. Who’s TARDIS. The blue light on top flashes and the hub makes the “vworp vworp” dematerializing sound whenever you connect or disconnect a device.

Link (via Gizmodo)

Technovelgy has a neat list of the first appearance in print of many SF inventions (ansibles, waldoes, and over 1,100 others).

Link

function Cthulhu()
{
print “Gadzooks! Tentacles!”;
return 1;
}

$eldritch = Cthulhu(); // the call of Cthulhu

(This suddenly occurred to me after an overlong coding run. I cracked myself up. It’s time to seek professional help.)

Which Science Fiction Writer Are You?

This quiz, which is clearly broken, thinks I’m William Gibson.

Who are you?

The Table of Malcontents blog has posted an interview with astronaut Buzz Aldrin about his new documentary In The Shadow Of The Moon. He also talks a bit about Mars colonization, and the genre of science fiction.

Me: You’ve written science fiction books. Are you fan of the genre?

Aldrin: I read a lot of science magazines and stories about the evolution and history of living species and planetary formations. I’m not a real avid science fiction reader because I’m interested in reality. It’s really easy to poke holes in almost any of the stories that come out. If you can beam people up or down then you don’t have to go through the complicated process of coming down from orbit and going through a landing. It’s much easier to just go to the transporter room and beam people up and down.

Me: Sounds like you’re a bit frustrated with sci-fi.

Aldrin: Well, I understand the pros and cons. I’m concerned that we’re educating a generation that has great expectations that we can do something immediately.

Link (via BoingBoing)

Locus Online has a list of “overlooked” science fiction from 2006.

Link

McDonald’s “bollypunk” River of Gods, which impressed the heck out of Shadow, has finally got a U.S. edition, published by Pyr Books (Shadow had to get his from Amazon U.K.). Since I haven’t yet managed to convince Shadow to do guest reviews on this blog, you can read Cory Doctorow’s review of it here.

Link (via BoingBoing, natch)

Cory Doctorow has a lot of glowing things to say about Fast Forward 1, the first installment in an SF anthology edited by Lou Anders.

Volume one has some stupendous stories. In Kage Baker’s humorous space opera “Plotters and Shooters,” a dysfunctional space-station’s cherished defense corps are upset by a tightly-wound otaku. In Elizabeth Bear’s creepy “Something-Dreaming Game,” a kid’s game of autoerotic asphyxiation is the key to communications with an alien race. In Ken MacLeod’s sacrelicious “Jesus Christ, Reanimator,” the returned Christ has to convince a skeptical world that he’s not just a nanotech Bush-robot. Ian McDonald’s “Ranjeev and Robotwallah” takes place in the same world as his brilliant epic novel, River of Gods, a cyberpunk balkanized India haunted by AIs. Gene Wolf’s “Hour of the Sheep” has the dreamlike feel of his best work. There are also great contributions from Sargent and Zebrowksi, Robert Charles Wilson, Mary Turzillo, and Justin Robson. At 400+ pages, there’s plenty here for everyone.

Link

Made With Molecules jewelry offers earrings and necklaces in the shape of chemical molecules such as caffeine, theobromine (chocolate), serotonin, and estrogen, not to mention testosterone boxer shorts and oxytocin baby onesies. Wish I’d known about the onesies when Shadowboy was smaller.

Link (via Making Light)

I’m going to try to resurrect the “If You Like…” feature from the old site here in occasional blog entries, with an eye to eventually gathering up the suggestions and spanging them into searchable database form. The aim of this project is to suggest authors you might enjoy reading based on their similarity to authors you already enjoy reading. So, for instance, if you enjoy Tim Powers, you might also like James P. Blaylock and K.W. Jeter. If you enjoy L. Ron Hubbard, what the hell is wrong with you?

That sort of thing.

Anyway, to start off, if you like…Robert A. Heinlein you might like…

• Neal Asher – If you don’t want to get mired in his seemingly-endless Polity series, try The Skinner, a neat stand-alone novel about some accidentally-immortal planetary colonists, really ooky aliens, really really ooky indigenous animals, and the reanimated corpse of a policeman that’s still trying to make an arrest after 600 years.

• Richard Morgan – Morgan will probably get a nod when I list cyberpunkish authors, too, since his debut novel Altered Carbon and its sequels hinge on the idea of “stacks”–little memory nodes that sit on your brainstem and back up your brain. Trading bodies–or living entirely body-free, in a virtual environment–is simply a matter of installing your stack into a new “sleeve.” However, the books also involve a vanished Martian race and the highly-advanced relics they left behind, which seems decidedly Heinlein-esque.

• John Scalzi – Unlike Asher and Morgan, who sort of accidentally resemble Heinlein, Scalzi consciously set out to ape his writing style. He did a pretty decent job of it, too, particularly in Old Man’s War. When you grow old you can join the military, get a brand-new body, and go fight other species for planets to colonize. This thing just reeks of RAH.

And, of course, if you like Asher, Morgan, or Scalzi, you’d probably enjoy Heinlein if you’ve never read him. See my Chip’s Picks entry about Heinlein for some recommendations.