the insignificant ramblings of a disturbed graphic designer

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Thursday Top 5

An Epic Conversation with Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi, Part 1
An conversation between Cory Doctorow, (technologist, author, and BoingBoing mainstay) and John Scalzi (sci-fi author and noted purveyor of Whatever). The video editing is a bit annoying. Actually, I like all of it except the incredibly annoying, loud intro music. They also use it between cuts. Laaaame. Oh, if you are interested, part two of the video is here.



“This I Believe” by Robert A. Heinlein
This short piece makes my cry every time I read it. The Heinlein Foundation recently found a recording of the original radio broadcast for Edward R. Murrow’s radio show in 1952, and posted an MP3.
www.heinleinprize.com/rah/thisibelieve.htm

Caduceus Cellars
Tool’s Maynard James Keenan has a winery.
www.caduceus.org

Stephen King’s “N.”
An original 25-episode video/comic series. A new episode every weekday through August 29.
www.simonsays.com/specials/stephen-king-nishere/

Waxing the winker
A couple guys go to LA’s (apparently) famous waxing salon Pink Cheeks. Yeah, um, definitely NSFW. And btw, “anal bleaching?” Ew.
www.current.com/items/89138614_waxing_the_winker

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Russian Heinlein book featured io9

One of my rare Heinlein books has been featured on io9, Gawker’s sci-fi blog (“In Soviet Russia, Space Opera Really Was Operatic”).

io9 was doing an article Russian science fiction book cover artwork and must’ve seen the book cover I posted to my Flickr group Heinleinia.

The book in question (pictured here) has always been a bit of a mystery to me. It’s a Russian edition of Stranger in a Strange Land published in 2003, but because most of the text is in Russian, I can’t get much information from the title and copyright pages. I found the book for sale on eBay last year.

One of the commenters on io9’s post noted that the cover of the Heinlein book features a painting by Donato Giancola, which was a nice find. Giancola’s produced some great work in his portfolio. Though I’ve never been able to figure out why this particular piece was chosen for the Heinlein book, as it bears no resemblance to anything in the story.

io9’s post also linked to Russian science fiction fan club Solaris (text in English), which features a gallery of other Russian Heinlein editions.

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Thursday Top 5

Star Wars (1977) Deleted Scene
Underneath that harsh, black exterior, Darth Vader shows he's still a little bit human.



Noise Pop podcast
A monthly podcast in conjunction with KQED Independents, showcasing ten indie songs.
www.kqed.org/arts/programs/noisepop/

Flight of the Conchords, "Ladies of the World"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLJ5a6aJOb8

Orwell Diaries
The Orwell Prize, a British award for political writing, is publishing George Orwell’s 1938–1942 diaries as a blog.
orwelldiaries.wordpress.com

Free Rice
Play a vocabulary game, and feed the world at the same time.
www.freerice.com

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Tor.com finally relaunches

The science fiction and fantasy publisher has been teasing people for months with free desktops and even full-length book downloads, in anticipation of the relaunch of their website. It went live today, and they've linked to all the previous free downloads for one final week. Hop on over if you like John Scalzi, Charles Wilson, Harry Turtledove, Peter David, et al.

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thursday Top 5

Cool Radiohead video
Made by Robert Hodgin using the open source tool Processing. You can read about how he made it on his blog.



Robert Silverberg
At 73 years old, he has written nearly 300 novels and 600 works of short fiction, along with 100 nonfiction books. He has edited 100 anthologies and published in 100 magazines. And he’s only slowing down a little bit.
www.sacbee.com

TrekPassions
Oh, the shame.... Do we really need a personals and social networking community for complete and utter dorks? Here is an actual personal from the site: “Wanted: SciFi ‘partner in crime.’ Are you interested in Midnight performances of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’? Prowling bookstores for the newest arrivals. Do you find yourself debating ‘Kirk vs Picard’ or ‘Star Wars vs Star Trek’. Are endlessly watching reruns of: Alien Nation, Babylon5, Stargate SG-1, Firefly or Farscape? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above the drop me a e-mail and lets get...”
www.trekpassions.com

What penis size is preferred by women?
In case you were wondering. And you know you were.
www.buzzfeed.com

Uh oh: Actual distribution of male penis sizes
Looks like men aren't living up to women’s expectations in this realm any more than we do in others.
www.buzzfeed.com

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Sunday, June 22, 2008

On the pale blue dot

“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.”
– Arthur C. Clarke

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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Thursday Top 5+1

Symptoms: Increased heart rate, fits of laughter...
What if two members of the crew of the TV show "Scrubs" fell in love?



Don't try this at home
Filming a slap in the face, then slowing it down to 4,000 frames per second.
www.collegehumor.com

"Guardians" by George R.R. Martin
Jason enthusiastically told me about this story he read a decade or two ago, and he was finally able to track it down online. It's by the fantasy and sci-fi author George R.R. Martin, and it touches on, among other things, the science of ecology. I really liked this story; it would make a good one-hour TV episode. Maybe Sci Fi Channel is listening?
cerclefantastique.free.fr

Do the Test
How many passes does the team in white make?
www.dothetest.co.uk

Hot day in southern Australia
tinyurl.com/2v2emo

Bonus:
And you thought base jumping was crazy

Wingsuit base jumping. Like flying, but totally, totally, totally nuts.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008

Thursday Top 5

Mural Mosaic
Interesting large murals made by putting together squares painted by numerous artists.
www.muralmosaic.com



Fake Ben Folds
The piano man teams up with Improv Everywhere to pull some fast ones on his fans.
www.improveverywhere.com

20 Things You Didn’t Know About Science Fiction
Proving how geeky the truly geeky can be.
discovermagazine.com

Philip K. Dick wrote a young adult novel?
papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com

iPhone's magic apps
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcB8CKa73B0

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