Out There: June 2004 Archives
I don't know anything about WesterCon57 but The Arizona Republic (sounds a bit dodgy) tries their best to make it sound incredibly geeky.
Stargazers and would-be galactic travelers, your ship is about to land.
It made me laugh because on one hand they're publicising it and yet on the other hand they are making it sound a bit too crazy to visit. Mind you it does have basket-weaving. I don't know what the general populace of Arizona makes of conventions like this, I've only passed through there a couple of times and that was to see the big hole in the ground.
You wait how many years and two turn up at once. Not only is the film version due but also BBC Radio 4 have announced brand new adaptations of the last three books (Life, The Universe And Everything, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and Mostly Harmless). You can hear a preview at the site (RealMedia unfortunately).[Via SFCrowsnest (although I'm reluctant to link to them because they never link to anyone else... still it's good karma so I will)]
What do you get if you cross Star Wars with Reservoir dogs? Songs like Stuck In A Room With Artoo and a film called Imperial Dogs [Via BoingBoing]
Nanotechnology pioneer slays 'grey goo' myths (EurekAlert - Social/Behavior):"Eric Drexler, known as the father of nanotechnology, today (Wednesday, 9th June 2004) publishes a paper that admits that self-replicating machines are not vital for large-scale molecular manufacture, and that nanotechnology-based fabrication can be thoroughly non-biological and inherently safe."
But he's only just decided that? Read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson for hyper nano sci-fi wonder.
But he's only just decided that? Read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson for hyper nano sci-fi wonder.
I continue to be impressed by John over at SFSignal. Not only is he reading loads of science fiction this year but he also creates impressive stats of what he has read. Oh to have the time (or the ability to make the time). In a crazy attempt to read more books with spaceships in them last week I got Spaceman PiggyWiggy out of the library for my son. He liked it but it didn't really stretch me with its ideas. For example PiggyWiggy acknowledged that things would float in space and that it would be hard to eat but then he didn't really expand on the other plusses and minuses of zero gravity. Shame it could have been wonderful Sci-Fi.
