[[image:gnu.jpg:Gary Gnu:center:0]] If you can remember Gary Gnu on television from way back when (and some of you should), have a cookie. If not, it’s okay… gnobody’s perfect. Update (28th Aug 2013): Dead link replaced with Youtube video.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Trawling The Net
365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows is a website that provides one short speculative fiction story a day for a whole year. While obviously the stories cannot match the narrative quality of a novella or a full-length novel, it does have however the ability to feature a new science fiction concept after another daily. The site began posting on August 1st 2005, so you have a lot of stories to read through in the archives and more coming each day until July 31st 2006.
Continue readingDoomsday Scenarios Galore
Are you feeling too cheerful or happy? Are you feeling that you’ve had enough feeling on top of the world? Are you sick of everyone telling you “The sun is shining! The birds are singing! Everything is smelling of roses!”? Then check out Exit Mundi, the website that catalogues the various ways the world and/or the entire universe may end, from scientific and religious standpoints. It’ll sure to wipe that smile off your face. How do you like to read about the accidental extinction of the human race? For example, what happens if genetically engineered crop (actually created in a lab named Epicyte in San Diego in 2002) designed to be a contraceptive, escapes into the real world and are accidentally planted in farms all over the world? We’ll all be eating food that induces infertility by killing all sperm cells. If you’re interested in space-based threats, what if a […]
Continue readingArabic Star Names and Science Fiction
I’ve known for quite some time that major star names used in science are Arabic in origin, a testimony to the work of Muslim astronomers between the 9th and the 12th centuries, but I’ve never found an extensive list of current star names and their Arabic origin until I stumbled across the Jordanian Astronomical Society’s website with its great Arabic Star Names page. Since I read and watch a lot of science fiction, I found it interesting that some of the names have appeared in contemporary SF. Not the well-known ones like Betelgeuse or Vega or Rigel, I’m talking about the not so well known star names. Referring the the JAS list in the link above: #133 Rukbat is the star which Anne McCaffrey’s Pern revolves around. It’s known as Alpha Sagittarii, so she did her homework by referring it to be in the “Sagittarius sector” although in the wiki […]
Continue readingSome Neil, Some Saddy
Briefly here are several things on the net that made me go “Wow! Cool!” in the last 48 hours or so. Well, the first is pretty cool. The second made me laugh out loud so hard, my nostril hairs complained. But then, many people have complained about my strange sense of humour. The Neil Part Gaiman is his surname. The news isn’t that the follow up to his novel American Gods, Anansi Boys, is out. It’s that the nice people at Harper Audio has allowed Neil to post the first track of the audiobook of Anansi Boys (read by Lenny Henry) on his site. It’s a 16mb mp3 file, if anyone’s interested. Mr. Nancy’s back, yo. The Saddy Part Dumpington is his surname, and he’s the, uh… folk hero created by everyone’s favourite depressed character, Strong Sad. [[image:dumpington.jpg:Isn’t that great?:center:0]] It’s a tragic lttle tale, but tragedy seems to wrack […]
Continue readingSuperman: A Dick and Loving It
When you think of Superman, the first thing that comes to you mind is a virtuous, heroic, superbeing who strives to save innocent lives from disaster, and defeat the devious plots of super villians and invading aliens. But Superdickery.com has a collection of images from early Superman comics (some not so early) of Superman being a dick. Not just an annoying dick, but a real self-centered and dangerous asshole, even to his closest friends. And not once or twice, but repeatedly. For instance, can you imagine Lois Lane actually finally marrying him in the 90s after putting her through things like this dozens of times? [[image:superdickery1.jpg:Superdickery1:center:0]] There must be an easier way of not wanting to get married. Which, of course, would lead Lois to fabricate mind-bogglingly bizzare schemes in order to get Superman to notice her as shown thusly: [[image:superdickery2.jpg:Superdickery2:center:0]] For God’s sake… deal with the devil??!? Haven’t she […]
Continue readingNYC 2123
[[image:nyc2123.gif:NYC2123:center:0]] We’ve seen online graphic novels before. But we haven’t seen one like NYC 2123, which is the first to be optimized for and downloaded for viewing into a PSP. Like the title implies, the story takes place in New York City in the year 2123; a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk dystopia which is a cross between William Gibson’s Neuromancer and current computer and information technology trends. Who needs a brain jack when you have wi-fi neural connection? Everything is open source, even drugs. The bodysculpting subculture is also briefly seen. If you have a PSP, download it and view it whenever you have the time to read. If you don’t have a PSP, like me, just enjoy the online version of the story.
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Batman: Laughing at the Joker’s Boner
Taking a break from Sila’s wedding, let us now read on the subject of comics. Specifically, DC’s Batman’s comics. It’s nothing to do with the Warner Animation’s excellent animated series, nor will we be talking about Christian Bale in the upcoming Batman Begins… Instead, let’s take a look back at the time when Batman and most probably the entire Gotham City laughed at Joker’s boner. Yes, you heard me. The Joker’s boner! (By way of the Accordion Guy.)
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Platinum Grit
Kris Vanderwater, a great web programmer and 3D modeller, introduced me to Platinum Grit, a awesome Australian webcomic by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy. There’s no fantasy some elements of fantasy, no science-fiction a weird alien abduction issue which just defies description, no breaking-the-fourth-wall humour, and no references to video games at all 😉 … just stories about normal (but quirky) relationship between three main characters, Kate, Nils and Jeremy and some hints a fair bit of neuroses (especially masochism on Jeremy’s part). The issue which chronicles Nils and Jeremy’s first meeting features a good deal of turtles exploding, laying waste to a zoo, and breaking the sanity of a zoo-keeper which will return to haunt Jeremy in a later issue. Supporting characters include Jeremy’s wrinkly Aunt Lottie (a far bit of perseverance needed to decipher her thick Scottish brogue), a Jamaican-accented cupboard, Arthur the pig and Zeigfried. I’m still […]
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Robot the Robot
Via Boing Boing, I came across an amazing webcomic known as Robot the Robot. Each issue is a flash file and it opens like a regular book, that is to say it has two facing page each screen. Click on the left page to leaf back the book, click on the right to leaf forward. The stories have a façade of innocence with a hint of underlying darkness. The characters are some of the weirdest and quirkiest I’ve seen in a webcomic. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
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Neil Gaiman’s Nebula Awards Speech
The creator of Lord Morpheus aka Dream aka Oneiros aka Orpheus’ Father aka the Thirdborn of the Endless was at the Nebula Awards in Chicago, Illinois last week and he gave a pretty awesome speech which like all of his written works (novel, novella or comic book) is an enjoyable read. If you like books and reading in general, I urge you to read Neil Gaiman’s journal, where he writes of the happenings around him (including the time his daughter hijacked his journal) and answers letters from his fans in a witty and fun manner. If you’re wondering here are the results for the Nebula Awards, which also includes Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens and Peter Jackson for the Best Script Awards for Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King. Here is an excerpt from his speech: Gene Wolfe pointed out to me, five years ago, when I […]
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Homemade Computer Generated Landscapes, You Ask?
You’ve seen it in the movies and television. Camera swooping down on artificially-made terrain. The terrain resides in the mind of the computer, and so does the camera. If you ask, can I do this on my home computer? Can I generate an artificial landscape and have it look near-photorealistic? Can I make green fields and snowcapped mountains and beaches and islands and desolate rocky coastline? The answer to that is yes, with Terragen. And it’s freeware! Just download, install and you can start to build landscapes like this nifty sunset snowscape I made: It’ll take some getting use to. But when you can figure it out, the results are spectacular. Try it out.
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