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Link Dump
Alderaan 5-Day Forecast – Amusing T-shirt. 65 Years – This xkcd comic, and accompanying mouseover text, is mildly depressing. Games: Cosmic Encounter – Description and review of an extremely cool-sounding SF-themed board game. Galaxy Rose – Gorgeous Hubble photograph. Vader’s Dark Side Coffee – The guys at ThinkGeek definitely understand the geek mind. Our Place…
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Trivia Thursday
What is the proper name of the “spice planet”? This first novel of a Brian W. Aldiss trilogy is about a planet whose sun eccentrically orbits a much brighter star and thus has a “great year” extending over hundreds of generations. Its societies undergo vast changes, interrupted by periodic plagues, and the relationship between humans…
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Seen Online
I won’t be impressed with science until I can download a waffle. — ixSEANxi I bet when scientists throw office parties, there’s always the one guy who gets drunk and carbon dates his own butt. — BoobsRadley If “dress for the job you want” were true, there would be a lot more people wearing capes.…
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Wookiee the Chew
This post should really just be titled, “Squee,” because that was my reaction to these prints. James Hance (“Relentlessly Cheerful Art”) has created Wookiee the Chew, featuring the “biped of very little brain,” Chrisolo Robin, and other familiar faces. The drawings are available as prints for a very reasonable $10 each, and he also has…
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Help Keep SETI Operational
SETI recently aannounced that it would be shutting down one of its main scanning tools due to lack of funding. It’s dismaying to see the slow decay of space-related research, and if you want to help stave it off you can make a tax-deductible donation to SETI here.
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Late Bloomer
This short film was a Sundance Festival entry, and is an interesting mashup of high school sex-ed and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. Where “interesting” should be read as, “really peculiar.” (via Topless Robot)
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Trivia Thursday
What was “The Observer’s” full name on Quantum Leap? A) Al Lewis B) Al Pierce C) Al Calavicci D) Al McWilkie E) Al Scaramaglio What Robert Heinlein novel was sometimes called “The Hippies’ Bible?” Who wrote the original screenplay for Planet of the Apes? A) Pierre Boulle B) Roman Polanski C) George Pal D) Rod…
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Gauss Facts
The heck with Chuck Norris; Carl Friedrich Gauss is the real badass. Gauss didn’t discover the normal distribution, nature conformed to his will. If Gauss had to walk 100 metres, and half the remaining distance, then half the remaining distance again, and so on, he’d get there. Parallel lines meet where Gauss tells them to.…
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In Space No One Can Hear You Complain About Your Job
“Art-technology-philosophy group” monochrom is creating a ten-part improv-reality sitcom about life on the International Space Station. The four actors playing the ISS crew must develop strategies on the fly in response to surprise situations, which are loosely based on actual ISS data uncovered by monochrom. Here’s the first episode. The others (there are currently three,…
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Little Thor
Marvel did this spoof of the “Little Vader” VW ad to promote the movie Thor. The dog’s name on its bowl and the car license plate are nice touches. (via Blame it On the Voices)