-
Trivia Thursday
In Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, what region is Perrin from? A) Two Rivers B) Lone Pine C) Spring Valley D) Fern Hamlet E) Three Streams Who was the commander of the Gammilons? What do the authors James Tiptree Jr., H. Beam Piper, Peter George, and Robert E. Howard have in common? In Nancy…
-
Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day
It’s today! As Dresden Codak described: You must spend the entire day in costume and character. The only rule is that you cannot actually tell anyone that you are a time traveler. Other than that, anything’s game. There are three possible options: 1) Utopian/cliché Future – “If the Future did a documentary of the last…
-
Future Potter
In yet another example of a spinoff being cooler than the actual franchise, DeviantArt member spicysteweddemon has created a whole set of space opera-esque Harry Potter characters, including Overlord Voldemort, General Lucius Malfoy of the Slytherin Alliance, and Captain Harold J. Potter of the ISS Griffin. The various characters’ costumes and titles hint at an…
-
Play a Game, Help Save Humanity
Humans are still better than computers at solving certain kinds of problems, so crowdsourcing is becoming a common way to harness lots of meat-based processing power. Turning the problem into a game guarantees even more participation. Phylo asks players to find the best arrangement of colorful little boxes, whilst behind the scenes they’re actually aligning…
-
It’s Life, Jim, But Not as We Know It
NASA issued a coy little update on Monday about an astrobiology study that would “impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life” and that the journal Science would have the full story. Speculation was rampant that maybe they had discovered life on another planet,* but although that doesn’t appear to be the case, NASAWatch and…
-
Trivia Thursday
This planet was home of House Corrino and Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. In the Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man,” who is imprisoned in the monastery? For lack of a better word, the builders of the Riverworld were called this. What actor played Starman, in the movie by that title? You’d better have a glitter…
-
Evolution Rap
Rapper Baba Brinkman debuted the “Rap Guide to Evolution” last year, and he’s now trying to get high-quality videos of his songs made for use in classrooms. If you’d like to help with this novel way to get kids interested in science, you can donate here. (via Friendly Atheist)
-
A Wave of Reason
The newest entry from “Symphony of Science:” Incidentally, you can now purchase a 7″ vinyl record (remember those?) of the original “A Glorious Dawn” remix. (via Discoblog)
-
RIP Irvin Kershner
The director of The Empire Strikes Back, amongst much else, has passed away. Well, poop.
-
RIP Leslie Nielsen
The star of Forbidden Planet and about a gazillion other things has passed away from complications from pneumonia. Bummer.