I really heart Improv Everywhere.

Read about the full “mission” here.

1. One of the best-loved items of SF terminology, this item is the antigravity device used to drive flying cities through the Galaxy in James Blish’s series collected as Cities In Flight, though he was using the term as early as 1950. Name it!
2. How long did it take to catch the killer in Marooned In Realtime?
3. In what Philip Francis Nowlan novel did Buck Rogers make his first appearance?
4. The five parts of this classic Heinlein novel are titled, “His Maculate Origin”, “His Preposterous Heritage”, “His Eccentric Education”, “His Scandalous Career” and “His Happy Destiny”. What is its title?
5. What book begins with the line, “Are we rising again?”
6. What is Gethen?
7. What actress was originally slated to play Captain Janeway before Kate Mulgrew took over the role?
8. Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time in this story.
9. This author’s first published story was “The Monster-God Marmurth” for Weird Tales in 1926.
10. In the Brian Daley trilogy that begins with the book Requiem for a Ruler Of Worlds, the two protagonists kill off the villain with an ancient projectile weapon. What odd projectile did they put into the weapon?

(Answers below the fold)

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Jonathan Rosenberg (the creator of Goats) has started a new strip entitled Scenes from a Multiverse which visits various locations “somewhere in an ordinary, everyday multiverse.” It’s odd and off-kilter and amusing, and there’s even an audience participation feature: Readers can vote on which location should be revisited in each Friday’s strip.

(via The Slumbering Lungfish Dybbuk Hostel and All-Night Boulangerie)

Clone Trooper Cupcakes – Tutorial for making the most adorable little troopers imaginable.

Super-Summer Vacations – From Latveria to Krypton, visit comics’ greatest tourist traps.

How to Fight a Fake-Looking Monster – Giggle. (See the follow-up cartoon here.)

Amazon, Woot, and You: But Mostly Woot – This is the best letter from a CEO in the history of corporations.

The Far Left Side – I can’t help but agree.

Accuracy in Labeling – Supernovae – Printable warning stickers.

The Big Idea: Larry Doyle – I love the concept of Doyle’s Go Mutants!

Heinlein’s Future History – A useful timeline.

Retro Video Propaganda Posters – These are just wonderful.

Where Would We be if We Taught Creationism As Science? – Exactly.

The SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project is a group blog “dedicated to reading and reviewing Gollancz’s series of genre classics in its entirety.” The site has inspired a few people to list the SF books in the series that they’ve read (in bold) and/or own (in italics). Play along! It’s fun!

The original list broke out ten special hardback editions, seven of which were also published in paperback. I’ve omitted the duplicates, hence the wonky numbering.

Between Shadow and me we own almost all of these titles, so I’m not going to italicize; I’m clearly well behind in actually reading them, though. I suck.

II — The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin
V — A Canticle for Leibowitz — Walter M. Miller, Jr.
X — The Day of the Triffids — John Wyndham

1 — The Forever War — Joe Haldeman
2 — I Am Legend — Richard Matheson
3 — Cities in Flight — James Blish
4 — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip K. Dick
5 — The Stars My Destination — Alfred Bester
6 — Babel-17 — Samuel R. Delany
7 — Lord of Light — Roger Zelazny
8 — The Fifth Head of Cerberus — Gene Wolfe
9 — Gateway — Frederik Pohl
10 — The Rediscovery of Man — Cordwainer Smith
11 — Last and First Men — Olaf Stapledon
12 — Earth Abides — George R. Stewart
13 — Martian Time-Slip — Philip K. Dick
14 — The Demolished Man — Alfred Bester
15 — Stand on Zanzibar — John Brunner
16 — The Dispossessed — Ursula K. Le Guin
17 — The Drowned World — J. G. Ballard
18 — The Sirens of Titan — Kurt Vonnegut
19 — Emphyrio — Jack Vance
20 — A Scanner Darkly — Philip K. Dick
21 — Star Maker — Olaf Stapledon
22 — Behold the Man — Michael Moorcock
23 — The Book of Skulls — Robert Silverberg
24 — The War of the Worlds — H. G. Wells
25 — Flowers for Algernon — Daniel Keyes
26 — Ubik — Philip K. Dick
27 — Timescape — Gregory Benford
28 — More Than Human — Theodore Sturgeon
29 — Man Plus — Frederik Pohl
30 — A Case of Conscience — James Blish
31 — The Centauri Device — M. John Harrison
32 — Dr. Bloodmoney — Philip K. Dick
33 — Non-Stop — Brian Aldiss
34 — The Fountains of Paradise — Arthur C. Clarke
35 — Pavane — Keith Roberts
36 — Now Wait for Last Year — Philip K. Dick
37 — Nova — Samuel R. Delany
38 — The First Men in the Moon — H. G. Wells
39 — The City and the Stars — Arthur C. Clarke
40 — Blood Music — Greg Bear
41 — Jem — Frederik Pohl
42 — Bring the Jubilee — Ward Moore
43 — VALIS — Philip K. Dick
44 — The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. Le Guin
45 — The Complete Roderick — John Sladek
46 — Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said — Philip K. Dick
47 — The Invisible Man — H. G. Wells
48 — Grass — Sheri S. Tepper
49 — A Fall of Moondust — Arthur C. Clarke
50 — Eon — Greg Bear
51 — The Shrinking Man — Richard Matheson
52 — The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch — Philip K. Dick
53 — The Dancers at the End of Time — Michael Moorcock
54 — The Space Merchants — Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 — Time Out of Joint — Philip K. Dick
56 — Downward to the Earth — Robert Silverberg
57 — The Simulacra — Philip K. Dick
58 — The Penultimate Truth — Philip K. Dick
59 — Dying Inside — Robert Silverberg
60 — Ringworld — Larry Niven
61 — The Child Garden — Geoff Ryman
62 — Mission of Gravity — Hal Clement
63 — A Maze of Death — Philip K. Dick
64 — Tau Zero — Poul Anderson
65 — Rendezvous with Rama — Arthur C. Clarke
66 — Life During Wartime — Lucius Shepard
67 — Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang — Kate Wilhelm
68 — Roadside Picnic — Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 — Dark Benediction — Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 — Mockingbird — Walter Tevis
71 — Dune — Frank Herbert
72 — The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress — Robert A. Heinlein
73 — The Man in the High Castle — Philip K. Dick
74 — Inverted World — Christopher Priest
75 — Cat’s Cradle — Kurt Vonnegut
76 — The Island of Dr. Moreau — H.G. Wells
77 — Childhood’s End — Arthur C. Clarke
78 — The Time Machine — H.G. Wells
79 — Dhalgren — Samuel R. Delany
80 — Helliconia — Brian Aldiss
81 — Food of the Gods — H.G. Wells
82 — The Body Snatchers — Jack Finney
83 — The Female Man — Joanna Russ
84 — Arslan — M.J. Engh

(via Big Dumb Object))

Me: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Three-year-old: “Han Solo.” Parenting accomplished.
– derekasaurus

Instead of downloading WebMD for the iPad, I taped a piece of paper to the screen and scrawled “IT’S CANCER” on it.
– phyllisstein

Went back in time to destroy Star Wars episodes 7-9. Now there are three “prequels” instead. Can’t wait to check them out.
– badbanana

My daughter got a ‘raise your own butterflies’ kits for her birthday and now I’m trying to figure out how to warn Indonesia of the tsunami.
– iamnotdiddy

Twilight’s like soccer. They run around for 2 hours, nobody scores, and its billion fans insist you just don’t understand.
– bretterlich

1. In what story by Arther C. Clarke does the spaceship Endeavour investigate a mysterious object from far, far away?
2. Coined in the late 1980s, on the analogy of Cyberpunk, this term describes the modern subgenre whose SF events take place against a 19th-century background.
3. In Jack Vance’s hauntingly beautiful story of a far future Earth “steeped,” as Norman Spinrad has put it, “in magic born of rotting history,” scientific experiment has given place to charms and enchantments that really work. Name it!
4. A fine collection by Zelazny, the title story (Nebula winner, 1965) concerns a man facing up to his fears in the shape of a Venerian sea monster, and “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” is a poignant story about a man who unwittingly brings faith to a Martian race on the brink of extinction. Name the collection!
5. In Asimov’s Foundation series, what was the name of the planet on which the Encyclopedia Galactica was published?
6. What is Sector General?
7. What is the Moon Knight’s real name?
8. What George R.R. Martin novel features the cat- and mushroom-loving master of the Ark?
9. What is Mr. Spock’s father’s name?
10. What book begins, “On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back?”

(Answers below the fold)

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Researchers at Harvard University have created a functioning, respirating human lung on a chip. It’s about the size of a pencil eraser. That is kind of awesome.

(via Unreasonable Faith)

The League of S.T.E.A.M. (Supernatural and Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management) is a group of steampunk ghost-and-monster hunters. They frequently post their exploits on their YouTube channel, and they recently did this amusing ad for their services.

(via BoingBoing)

“Nerd Approved is a website dedicated to all things weird and interesting in the world of gadgets and toys. If it’s nerdy and entertaining, you will find it here.”

You need to check this site out. No, really.