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The Bloggess vs. William Shatner
It all started when Jenny the Bloggess (whose head has been featured on BoingBoing and who routinely makes me shoot coffee out my nose anyway [“I’m going to read the Bloggess. Where’s the tarp?”]) sent a series of possibly-drunken tweets to William Shatner, to wit: Okay, don’t ask why but I need to get William…
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Link Dump
Whedonesque Needlepoint – Joss Whedon-inspired stitchery. I especially like the Firefly/Oregon Trail mashup. Food Photography: Star Wars Edition – Y’know, it never seems to be the kids you see playing with these action figures. Evolution – Extremely cool animated gif. Continent of Stupidea Under Quarantine – John C. Wright has written some interesting-looking books. I…
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Augmented Tourism
In an effort to enrich tourists’ appreciation of historical sites, the iTACITUS (Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services*) project is using augmented reality to create a virtual time machine. Tourists can snap a picture of a site, upload it to a central server, and have instant access to cultural and historical information about…
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More from the Chipmunk Guy
Chris McVeigh’s photos of chipmunks interacting with Star Wars action figures were all over the blogosphere recently (I think Worst. Copilot. Ever. is my favorite). He’s got loads of other entertaining photos on Flickr, and Terry Border of Bent Objects has done an interview with him. I had no idea that The Force had such…
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Hell Yeah, Hubble
That’s the title of this post from Starts with a Bang, and I think it just about sums this up. It’s a 3-D flythough simulation of the Hubble’s Ultra Deep Field photos. And it is sort of amazing.
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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…
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The Clockwork Century
Author Cherie Priest has written several stories set in the same alternate history/steampunkish milieu, including novels Boneshaker (due out in October) and Dreadnought (due in Fall of 2010). She’s put together a site devoted to the stories’ shared world. Here, it is 1880 (or thereabouts). The Civil War is still underway, drawn out by English…
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NASA’s “40-Year Projects” May be Funded Again
NASA founded its Institute for Advanced Concepts in 1998 to fund outside research for concepts and products which had realization horizons of no fewer than 10 and no more than 40 years. It eventually lost funding, but the National Research Council has reviewed the NIAC program and concluded that a similar program could be re-launched.…
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“Touchable” Holography
The University of Tokyo’s Shinoda Lab has come up with a way for holograms to provide tactile feedback. Wiimotes track hand motion and ultrasound creates the sensation of touch.
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Now I’m All Hungry
In a fit of whimsy, New Scientist has published an article comparing various cosmological models to similarly-shaped snack food. Expect the Intelligent Design guys to work a “god had the munchies” angle into their arguments. One possibility is that space is curved like a Pringle. At the centre of a Pringle, the surface curves up…