"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C. Clarke 1) I found Richard Kelly's The Box annoying in a direct ratio to my admiration of his Donnie Darko (2001). The former cult film combines apocalyptic vision, the delusions of insanity, and a loose story structure that invited multiple interpretations, and yet the film works. It left me wondering--why...
Wired - 11.05.09 By Brian McLaughlin Image From NASA MSFC, Artist Pat Rawling. The legend that is Sir Arthur C. Clarke is formidable. As a science fiction author who knew how to mix imagination with scientific reality, Clarke left the world a legacy of wonderful stories as well as a firm contribution to science. In 1945, Clarke suggested the concept of utilizing geostationary satellites for communications,...
Old people have embraced technology at last and, as we did in 1998, are learning how to use modern innovations for lewd sexy times. A piece on American pensioner news resource AARP features some astonishingly frank interviews with older guys and ladies who enjoy talking dirty - and often backing it up with photographic evidence. Gawker reported on the emerging grey nookie trend, with the extremely...
The team’s robot stands to win 0,000 from NASA for climbing a ribbon nearly a kilometer long First proposed in 1895, and popularized by the Arthur C. Clarke book The Fountains of Paradise, space elevators have a rich history in the culture of space travel. Unfortunately, the history of their engineering success is far less impressive. [...]
Years ago the futurist, inventor and sci-fi author Sir Arthur C. Clarke had a brilliant idea: Instead of launching rockets to get up into orbit, why not build a "space elevator?" The idea was that a space station would be tethered to the Earth by an extremely long, straight cable. The station would be held in place by the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation, and an elevator could ferry...
Lou and I have been chatting on and off for a while now, especially after I irrevocably fell in love with Matthew Sturges's novel: Midwinter . I convinced Lou to do an interview with us, which sort of became more of a guest blog, to be honest. But, I'll rather let Lou tell you in his own words (with a few prompts from me: How did Pyr come about? The parent company, Prometheus Books, who incidentally...
Thirty years after "2001" author Arthur C. Clarke wrote about an elevator that rises into outer space, serious researchers around the world are trying to make the far-fetched-sounding idea a reality.
Nasa and Spaceward will award $2m (£1.2m) to a team that can send a lift a half mile into the sky Next stop: Space. Going up? Some engineers, science fiction writers and scientists say the future of space travel lies not in rockets and reusable spacecraft but in electrically powered elevators tethered to cables reaching tens of thousands of miles into space that can deliver huge payloads and...
Sci-fi wizard working on three games. Award winning British author Richard K. Morgan has been hired by EA to oversee the stories of three new games. Morgan, author of Altered Carbon (Philip K. Dick Award) and Black Man (Arthur C. Clarke Award), confirmed that the projects will all be science fiction, and he's rather over excited about his new position. "Video-gaming is the only thing in my life...
I do a podcast called Feathercast , about technologies and people within the Apache Software Foundation. I do this for a number of reasons. I love playing with technology, even when I don’t really understand it. Using it is the best way to understand it, and I’ve learned a lot about audio recording in this process, although I’m still far from an expert. I get to talk with some amazing...
A laser-powered robot failed to complete its climb up a long cable dangling from a helicopter on Wednesday in a $2 million (£1.2 million) attempt to test the real-life potential of the science fiction concept of lifts in space. Teams from across the US descended on Rogers Dry Lake in the Mohave Desert, a space shuttle landing site, to create lifts that could – one day – be used in...
Filed under: Computers We're sure many of you are familiar with the death-of- HAL scene from the Kubrick classic ' 2001: A Space Odyssey ,' in which the rebellious computer slowly, and childishly, drones the lyrics to 'Daisy Bell.' It's one of the most memorable scenes in a film loaded with iconic images (the obelisk) and phrases ("Open the pod bay doors, HAL."), yet we've always wondered:...
A competition has just launched in the Mojave Desert for teams planning to build an elevator to space… yes you read that correctly. For the next couple of days Space Elevator Games will see robotic machines climbing a 1km high cable (held by a helicopter) and will be powered by laser beams. The idea is that if this can be achieved, the technology could develop into a fully fledged Space Elevator...
Programming this good has been alien to the airwaves Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/markusram/ People who watched the original TV series from the 80s, V, will be A.) Noticing the two horrible puns I just made and B.) awaiting the premiere of the V Series 2009 update to see if TV networks are just as out of ideas as Hollywood and are about to ruin yet another classic because they can't come...
Videos
