- Very minor 24 spoiler warning. The show is moving to New York next season. I wonder if this means I should start watching it again. I haven’t watched an episode in over four and a half years, but it would be interesting to see if I spot anything I recognize. [via]
- Is your favorite television show in danger of being canceled? Well then don’t watch it — at least, not on television. It’s a compelling argument. If you’re not a Nielsen family, it’s maybe better to watch online (legally) where your viewership is counted. [via]
- Then again, if cable companies like Time Warner have their way, pretty soon watching online won’t be economically feasible for most people.
- Unless, of course, we get the sort of jobs that only pay well on TV. I can see this much from experience, editorial assistants don’t make anything like they seem to make on Ugly Betty. Heck, most editors don’t either.
- Finally, photographer Chino Otsuka digitally added her modern self to childhood photos. It makes for a weird sort of time travel. I quite like it. [via]
various
Wednesday various
- This is easily the oddest story I’ve read all day:
Saudi police say they are investigating a hoax that has seen people rushing to buy old-fashioned sewing machines for up to $50,000.
The Singer sewing machines are said to contain traces of red mercury, a substance that may not exist.
I’d never even heard of “red mercury” before this. [via]
- Speaking of William Gibson — I wasn’t, really, but that link above came from him — Maureen F. McHugh offers some thoughts on “Cyberspace” and how Gibson got it wrong, at least by our modern, now-real-world definition:
But more interesting to me is that Cyberspace was initially envisioned as a place you went into. It turns out it’s not that at all. Cyberspace is the organization of your experience when you are using a linked interface. So when you’re in your car, using your GPS, you’re in cyberspace, right there on the freeway. Using you smartphone to check Twitter, you’re in cyberspace. We don’t go to cyberspace, it comes to us. It overlays our world and our experience. It changes our perception of space and time.
This is equal parts neat and terrifying.
- I spent way too much time today immersed in the #badscifi thread on Twitter. But I also loved these alternate plot descriptions. My favorites are easily:
ALIENS: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.
DOCTOR WHO: Elderly man serially abducts young women.
TERMINATOR: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.
Obviously, plenty of these come with spoilers, so be forewarned. [via]
- Here’s something I’m wondering: If, as American Apparel is now claiming, Woody Allen’s reputation was so tarnished by sex scandal as to be worthless as an endorsement, why did they ever use it as such?
- There’s been a lot written about “AmazonFail” the past couple of days, but I think John Scalzi sums it up quite nicely: “…people rarely freak out in a moderate sort of way.”
Tuesday various
- It’s been said that the human brain is sort of hard-wired to see faces everywhere, even where there are none there. I find it amusing that we’re now designing software that can be equally fooled. [via]
- Of course, that’s not the only thing humans are designing software and robots to do. We’re also, apparently, building robot suits. This is equal parts cool and goofy looking.
- I’ve never really been tempted to get a tattoo, mostly because I can’t think of a particular design I’d want to carry around with me forever. That said, these science and science fiction tattoos are pretty cool. Free lifetime subscription to the first person who gets a Kaleidotrope tattoo! (Lifetime of the zine, not of the subscriber.) [via and via]
- Sometimes I think maybe I picked the wrong month to visit Chicago. If you’re there next month, May 9th specifically, Terry Jones will apparently be hosting a screening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Sounds like fun!
- And finally, following up on Gwenda Bond’s recent thoughts on sci-fi foodstuffs, I see that over at Tor.com Jason Henninger is starting a new series on science fiction cuisine. While meanwhile Chris McLaren shares some interesting thoughts on spun sugar and other marvels of our modern age.
Monday various
- Hmm, now here’s an interesting writing prompt from Neil Gaiman: a story “from the point of view of the invisible cow.”
- Speaking of stories, apparently there’s a collection of it occurs to me now that I’ve only read about half of his novels — but this is exciting news nonetheless.
- 97.3% of e-mail is spam. And that’s down from last year’s 98.4%! The question remains, however: how much of that non-spam 2.7% is e-mail you actually want to receive? [via]
- TV Squad shares the trailer for the new Doctor Who “semi-spin-off,” K9. It’s funny, but to me, the thing that looks least interesting about this trailer is K9 himself. It’s been suggested that not everything in that trailer is final, but I’m not desperately impressed. (Planet of the Dead, on the other hand, wasn’t half bad.)
- Speaking of Doctor Who, Betty posts that the interview she conducted with Marc Schuster and Tom Powers, the authors of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who for issue #4 of Kaleidotrope is now available online. I was really happy with the results of the interview, and I’m glad to see it live on. The color photos — which I couldn’t provide — are a nice touch.
Thursday various
- Billy Bob Thornton, the new Joaquin Phoenix? A fascinating yet painfully awkward interview with Thornton and his band on CBC Radio just goes from bad to worse — although host Jian Ghomeshi does a good job of trying to keep the whole thing afloat. I understand Thornton’s desire to be taken seriously as a musician, not as just some dilettante actor who thinks he can play, but he just comes across as a confused (or rather, stoned) jackass here. “Would you say that to Tom Petty?” he barks at one point, angry that he’s been asked if he’s always had a lifelong love for music. But you know, yes, an interviewer would ask that of Petty. If Tom Petty decided to become a serious actor — beyond starring as “himself” in The Postman, say — it would be perfectly valid to ask him about his music career, and to wonder how that’s influenced his acting or if acting was something he’s always loved. It wouldn’t be insulting, the way Thornton seems to think Ghomeshi is being here.
- Gwenda Bond has an interesting discussion going on food in science fiction.
- So apparently some Amazon customers are protesting e-books over $9.99. I’m not so sure that’s a fair price for all e-titles, but I do think pricing is the main thing keeping people away from e-books. (More so for the readers than the books; I personally love my e-book reader, but they’re a several-hundred-dollar investment right now. That’s enough to give anyone pause, even before these tough economic times.)
- Oh great. Another re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. I know it’s a well known and beloved classic, with some immediately recognizable archetypes at its core, but do we really need another new take on it?
- And this review of the new Legends of Zork game just makes me sad:
It’s honestly as though someone designed a micropayment system then awkwardly shoved a very crude game on top of it.
I have many fond memories of failing to complete the original Zork and its sequels as a boy.