-
Hubble Discovers “Unknown” Object
There may be nothing new under the sun, but there’s apparently something brand-new and unexplained out beyond it. In a paper published last week in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers described a new and completely unknown object with behavior so unusual that it may be a new class of phenomena. The object also appeared out of…
-
What Geeks Do When They’re Rich
They build their own landspeeders. We built this fiberglass replica landspeeder from the ground up on a custom aluminum chassis. The electric drive system is capable of a top speed around 25 mph. The speeder is the same size as the original, and can travel several miles on a single battery charge. From some of…
-
Meet the Star Wars Continuity Cop
Here’s a job that would drive most of us right up a wall: Leland Chee is responsible for keeping track of everything in the Star Wars universe. His official title is continuity database administrator for the Lucas Licensing arm of Lucasfilm—which means Chee keeps meticulous track of not just the six live-action movies but also…
-
The Best Neal Stephenson Characters
In the wake of awaited-with-geekly-mouth-froth Anathem‘s publication, articles about Neal Stephenson are popping up like mushrooms. Popular Mechanics (Popular Mechanics?) has gotten in on the act with a list of the six best Stephenson characters. Hero: Randy Waterhouse /// Book: Cryptonomicon (1999) /// Profession: Programmer & Entrepreneur Randy Waterhouse is an unlikely iconoclast: a programmer…
-
Makes Perfect Sense
io9 makes a compelling argument: Sarah Palin is actually a fembot. No-One Ever Sees Palin Go Through A Metal Detector At Airport Security. Sure, you can get away with that in Alaska – It’s a different world up there, after all, and the only security they need there are polar bears guarding the check-in desks.…
-
Del Toro Revisits the Classics
Although Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy II, Pan’s Labyrinth) is currently working on The Hobbit, he’s got his next two projects lined up: A revisit to Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The director will add his own twist to the well-known “Frankenstein” franchise, a story he has been waiting to tell all his professional…
-
LHC Online Tomorrow
The “Big Bang Machine” goes online tomorrow. The Large Hadron Collider will explore the tiniest particles and re-enact parts of the Big Bang. Sure, there’s a small chance that the universe will wink out of existence when the thing is fired up, but it’s a pretty small chance. As Cory Doctorow reported: [A]s one physicist…
-
Sfanglophilia?
(Or– why North American fans need to read more SF from the U.K.) For some time Chip has been asking me for opinion pieces for the blog. Since, according to the equitable distribution laws of our state, intellectual property is shared equally within a marriage, please feel free to harangue her mercilessly over the views…
-
From the Archives
The O*W*C message boards aren’t going to be resurrected any time soon, and when they are we’ll probably start from scratch. There’s some fun stuff in there, though, so from time to time* I’ll dig through the database and share old posts. Look, here’s one now! The Alien Abduction Survey The Brunching Shuttlecocks, who take…
-
Learn to Speak Futurese
In 1000 AD the sentence was: Wé cildra biddaþ þé, éalá láréow, þæt þú taéce ús sprecan rihte, forþám ungelaérede wé sindon, and gewæmmodlíce we sprecaþ… In 2000 AD it’s: We children beg you, teacher, that you should teach us to speak correctly, because we are ignorant and we speak corruptly… In 3000 AD it…