pop culture
Trending and current events, topics, and interest in science fiction and technology.
Rewatching... Doctor Who: The Moonbase – Part 3
Saturday 25 February 1967 "Clever. Clever. Clever." I like the Cybermen’s new voices. Perhaps not as easy to understand as the old ones but much scarier and more emotionless and robotic. Emotionless in tone mind you, but the dialogue still gives away emotional oddities. I’m not sure if “Clever. Clever. Clever.” is sarcasm at Hobson’s realisation of what the drops in air pressure indicated when the Cybermen got in, or self-congratulation. They also come out with words and phrases such as “excellent” and “stupid Earth brains”!
By Nick Brown9 years ago in Futurism
Alex The Inventor-Chapter 7
To Read Chapters 1 - 6, Go To: Deep Sky Stories and Illustrations. Chapter 7 - The Stranger He Knew Alex still remembered the dream that morning during breakfast and he nibbled half-heartedly at his cereal as he pondered it over and over again, staring off in a daydream. Mrs. Faraway noticed his glazed look and asked him if he had slept well.
By G.F. Brynn9 years ago in Futurism
Fasces
She closed her well worn copy of Atlas Shrugged when the limo motorcade came to a stop outside the venue. The roboguard chauffeur gently opened her door and she stepped out of the car, into the blue force field the robot projected. As well as distributing a non-lethal electric shock to whomever touched the force field, it had a noise-canceling function, which she appreciated as she glanced out over the sea of unwashed and red-faced Americans, their various gobs open in shouts.
By Elisa Mask9 years ago in Futurism
Rewatching... Star Trek: Space Seed
Thursday 16 February 1967 The Enterprise encounters an old 1990s spaceship drifting and sending out a Morse code message. Apparently, in the mid 1990s we had our last World War, a “Eugenics War” where we tried to perfect our race with “selective breeding”. As Spock says, “a strange and violent period” in our history. Thank goodness those days are over, eh?
By Nick Brown9 years ago in Futurism
The Thousandth Happy Haunt
They say that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth. Even the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion are happy, being called the “happy haunts”. According to the ghost host, the disembodied narrator of the attraction, there are nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them in residence, but he assures everyone, day after day, that there is room for a thousand – he even asks for volunteers. Paul Frees provided the voice of the Ghost Host, delivering dialog such as, “Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding,” which many agree could only have been written by legendary Imagineer X. Antencio. An unintended consequence of his writing, however, is that since November 2, 1986, the Haunted Mansion's Ghost Host truly became a voice from the beyond, with the death of Paul Frees.
By L. Christopher Bird9 years ago in Futurism
14/1/1967: The Underwater Menace – Part 1
My ongoing mission: to watch classic television fifty years after first broadcast... “You’re not turning me into a fish!” The problem I have with this episode is that Atlantis is presented as if it’s a legend (and indeed referred to as such) when it is in fact a fictional island from a MADE-UP STORY by Plato. The confusion arose when people started to speculate that Plato may have been inspired by a real place. But as far as I’m aware there is no evidence for this, and even if there was such inspiration, that’s all it was. There has never been any such place called Atlantis! So for Doctor Who to have a story set there, well the Doctor might as well visit the ‘legendary’ lands of Narnia or Tatooine or Oz or Pokemon.
By Nick Brown9 years ago in Futurism
12/1/1967: The Squire Of Gothos
My ongoing mission: to watch classic television fifty years after first broadcast... Another week, another red miniskirted yeoman coffee waitress. I didn’t catch her name. Perhaps Kirk knows, perhaps he doesn’t care. Kirk and Sulu suddenly disappear from the Enterprise bridge after a mysterious planet is spotted. Some other crew members beam down to rescue them, and they all end up in this castle, which turns out to be a fake one created by a fake human calling himself Trelane.
By Nick Brown9 years ago in Futurism
Five Experiments That Show Your Universe Is Weird, Really Weird
We take our reality just like we take our tax preparers: solid and dependable, with an aversion to surprises. Experiments during the last few years, however, seem to indicate that our reality is less like a nerdy accountant buried in piles of 1040 forms and more like the half naked, fully drunk performance artist who thrives on not just surprising, but shocking the ever-loving crap out of us.
By Matt Swayne9 years ago in Futurism
Military in Science Fiction
Military in Science Fiction Wrong uniform, wrong rank, wrong weapons, wrong movements, wrong wrong wrong. Common thoughts while reading or watching most fictional stories with military involved and specifically Science Fiction. Most modern western military (remember I said most) don’t use fully automatic assault rifles as a main weapon, it wastes too many rounds too quickly. Nobody refers to special operations units or missions as “Spec Ops”, nobody. And can you please stop making all military personnel two dimensional war fiends.
By Nickolas Rudolph9 years ago in Futurism
Artifacts
Artifacts A common trait that many Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy aficionados seem to share is the love of things. Figurines, statues, props, and day to day objects adorn with our obsessions. They clutter our shelves, walls, table tops, and really any surface that can hang, hold, or display these things. This is not an uncommon behavior for fans of any genre or domain. Sports fans have their stashes of trinkets and garb displaying their colors and love of the game. However, the proverbial geeks of Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Fantasy seem to take this to an extraordinary measure.
By Nickolas Rudolph9 years ago in Futurism
Animare
From the Diary of the Imagineer, December 16, 1966: It's like he knew. He knew we would need him, but I have to wonder if we are up to the task. When we recreated Lincoln, we worked with what history had left us, from his life mask to his writings. It is the most accurate recreation of the human figure ever seen, but what we have been tasked with at Ayefive will make that seem like a wind-up toy if we are successful. He left us with volumes more than what history recorded of Lincoln, but right now our project is impossible. We don't even know what we will have to invent to see it to completion. But like he said, doing the impossible – it's kind of fun.
By L. Christopher Bird9 years ago in Futurism
