“Who is the Elvis Trooper, where did he come from, is he really Elvis or a Clone, and why is he here? These are just some of the many questions that may have brought you here. Well, there are no answers to be given here, just a photographic documentation of the many Elvis Trooper sightings that are being reported across this great land of ours.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 14, 2006 in Science
The photo below is what Saturn looks like at night. In contrast to the human-made lights that cause the nighttime side of Earth to glow faintly, Saturn’s faint nighttime glow is primarily caused by sunlight reflecting off of its own majestic rings. The above image of Saturn at night was captured in July by the Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn. The thumbnail doesn’t do the photo any justice (you need to see all of the cool detail to appreciate the image), so you should click to the link and see the photo full scale:
“While at Creation Entertainment’s Official Star Trek Convention in Sacramento Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy took the stage and got bombarded by questions about the film. One of the questions posed to him was whether he’d be interested in playing Spock’s father Sarek (originally played by Mark Leonard Baker) in the new movie. Leonard’s response, “get Abrams on the phone right away!” seems to indicate that he’d be up for it.”
Looking at the photo on the right I think Nimoy might be too hippy looking to play his own father:
…but say what you may, Mark Lenard (on the left) was a darn good actor!
“More than one-third of the giant planet systems recently detected outside Earth’s solar system may harbor Earth-like planets, many covered in deep oceans with potential for life, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University.
The study focuses on a type of planetary system unlike our solar system that contains gas giants known as “Hot Jupiters” orbiting extremely close to their parent stars — even closer than Mercury to our sun, said CU-Boulder researcher Sean Raymond. Such gas giants are believed to have migrated inward toward their parent stars as the planetary systems were forming, disrupting the space environment and triggering the formation of ocean-covered, Earth-like planets in a “habitable zone” conducive to the evolution of life, according to the new study.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 12, 2006 in Star Wars
For just a mere $2400 you can own your own authentic Star Wars Stormtrooper suit! Shepperton studios, which made the originals for Lucasfilm, is now selling them to the public. These are complete suits exactly like the ones worn in the movies. The helmet is made from the original 1976 movie mold, so it is 100% authentic. Blaster not included:
“Peter Jackson is eyeing his next fantasy series. The filmmaker has dipped into his discretionary fund to option “Temeraire,” a historical fantasy series by first-time novelist Naomi Novik, as he puts the pieces together for his career post-“King Kong.”
The “Temeraire” saga reimagines the world of the Napoleonic Wars with the addition of an air force of dragons and valiant aviators. It centers on British naval Capt. Will Laurence, who captures a French ship, where he discovers an unhatched dragon egg in the hold — a gift from the Emperor of China intended for Napoleon. When the egg hatches, he is forced to give up his naval career to become captain of the dragon he names Temeraire.”
Also check out this fan website for the book series:
“Next summer, six scientists will get to travel to the desolate permafrost desert of the Arctic, live in a two-level metal can and only go outside wearing 40 pounds of faux spacesuit. Not your idea of fun? For the scientists, it could be. The team will be the first to get a taste of what it will be like to live on Mars for months at a time, and they get to skip the half-year trip to the red planet to boot.
The research station is run by the Mars Society, a group of scientists, engineers and futurists intent on accumulating the knowledge needed for manned exploration of Mars. The goal of the four-month tour is to develop field research techniques applicable for scientific investigations of the planet, said Robert Zubrin, an aeronautical engineer and president of the society.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 12, 2006 in Pulp Fiction
This is a must visit website for Lord of the Rings fans! This interactive Elvish translator converts English into into Tengwar script, which is the script used to write Elvish languages such as Quenya and Sindarin:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 11, 2006 in Comic Books
I have to say that I wasn’t sure what to put up on this website today. Five years ago on this day I was in Manhattan watching the Twin Towers smoke, and then vanish into history. Yet having watched the events of that day there is still a part of me that’s still trying to make sense of it all, and whenever I look downtown in my mind I still see a gap in the skyline of a city that I love.
Over the past year a number of filmmakers have tackled the subject of 9/11, and in my mind there’s something very tacky about that. As a creative person I’m all for an artistic exploration of an event, but something on the scale of a Hollywood epic or TV mini-series seems a bit insincere to me. Yes I’m sure in the minds Oliver Stone or ABC that they had “the best of intentions”, but making a big budget drama at this point in time stikes me as exploiting the tragedy of others.
In stark contrast, as I was researching this subject I came across a website on 9/11 in comic books. What struck me looking at some of the titles is that while you might expect them to be tacky (ala a Hollywood epic) there’s something very personal and honest about them. Marvel put together several short stories on 9/11 called “A Moment of Silence”, and there’s some very good storytelling relating to the event going on inside the book. To me this is more of a tribute to what happened that day.
Take look at this panel, it manages to capture the moment without any words:
I was even struck by a December 2001 issue of Spiderman which shows a bit of class when dealing with the subject. For starters the cover of the issue is all black which is a pretty stark but creative statement for a comic book. Even more amazing is that inside the book you see fleeing survivors demanding to know from our superhero “Where were you?” and “How could you let this happen?”, and struggling for words Spidy can only reply that he couldn’t even imagine the event taking place.
Looking back at it I think Marvel comics was able to do a class job with these books because their offices are located here in New York City. For the editors of Marvel the event wasn’t some abstract movie-of-the-week that they watched on CNN, but their everyday reality. I think the gap I see from Hollywood, be it Oliver Stone or ABC/Disney is that if you weren’t in New York City that day (or living here in the months that followed) you wouldn’t get the same personal insights into the event.
“In a Variety article talking about MGM’s move back into the tentpole business, the trade mentions a few highly-anticipated projects that are in the works:
Over the next few years, MGM is planning to release half a dozen films, some in the $150 million to $200 million-plus range. Studio is ready to unveil such high-profile projects as “Terminator 4”; one or two installments of “The Hobbit,” which Sloan hopes will be directed by Peter Jackson.”
“After four years of collecting and photographing samples of all the chemical elements, months of struggling to select the very best example of each one, and further months of working on the best possible printing quality, I am pleased to say that you can now buy a copy of my photographic periodic table poster. The images come from my library of over a thousand element samples, many collected or re-photographed specially for this poster. (A few highly unstable elements show a picture of the person or place after which the element is named, or a mineral that contains trace amounts of the element.)”
…the above thumbnail image doesn’t do the poster justice, you need to see the images upclose!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 10, 2006 in Science
To encourage folks to do space elevator research, several groups are funding a competition for people to build build the the strongest tether and the fastest moving vertical robot:
“The Spaceward Foundation recently announced the second annual Space Elevator Games to be held in partnership with NASA and the X PRIZE Foundation at the Las Cruces International Airport in New Mexico, USA. Together, NASA, Spaceward, and X PRIZE are looking to jumpstart safe and efficient space exploration using prizes for private research; much like the Orteig Prize which was won by none other than Charles Lindbergh in his Spirit of St. Louis. The competitions have a total purse of $400,000 sponsored by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program, quadrupling the amount of prize money of last year’s event. Two prizes will be awarded to teams who can build the strongest tether, and the fastest moving vertical robot. Over twenty teams from different universities and research groups will be competing for a piece of space travel history.
Care to play a game? After over twenty years it looks there may be a bad direct-to-DVD sequel in the works to one of my favorite early 80s geek hacker movies:
“Devoid of all originality like most hollywood studios nowadays, MGM is planning on launching a sequel aptly named “War Games 2, a thriller involving high-level computer operations, which begins filming in November.”
…now what would be cool is if the sequel was set in 1984 and they had a classic new wave soundtrack and had guest star spots for Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. And if they could work the “brand new Apple Macintosh” that would even be cooler. But nooooo! I bet they’ll do a lame job of it.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 9, 2006 in Comic Books
One of the rarest and most coveted comics is for sale, the starting bid is at $30k. Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1. This is the first issue of the comic book from 1939 dedicated solely to him. There are very few copies of the comic know to exist:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 9, 2006 in Comic Books
I just discovered a website that allows you to create your own comic strips online. What’s cool about the website is that it features some very hip looking illustrations, not your standard comic book clip art:
It looks like astronomers are starting to think that there may be more Earth like planets that are out there, of course this isn’t anything new as Carl Sagan was talking about this sort of thing over twenty years ago. But what is new is that we are starting to get a real glimpse at other solar systems, it’s too bad folks like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov aren’t alive to see the revolution that is starting in astronomy:
“Earthlike planets covered with deep oceans that could harbor life may be found in as many as a third of solar systems discovered outside of our own, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. These solar systems feature gas giants known as “Hot Jupiters,” which orbit extremely close to their parent stars — even closer than Mercury to our sun, University of Colorado researcher Sean Raymond said.
The close-orbiting gassy planets may help encourage the formations of smaller, rocky, Earthlike planets, they reported in the journal Science. “We now think there is a new class of ocean-covered, and possibly habitable, planets in solar systems unlike our own,” Raymond said in a statement.
The team from Colorado, Penn State University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Maryland ran computer simulations of various types of solar systems forming. The gas giants may help rocky planets form close to the suns, and may help pull in icy bodies that deliver water to the young planets, they found.”
“Short films by Stephen Frears, the late John Schlesinger and brothers Tony and Ridley Scott can now be downloaded from the British Film Institute’s website. The initiative allows users to watch rarely shown early works from some of Britain’s leading film-makers. Six features are also available, among them 1974’s Pressure – regarded as one of Britain’s first black feature films. There are 230,000 films and 675,000 TV programmes in the BFI archive. Download costs range from £5 to £12.50.”
…sadly it seems downloading the films is off limits to Americans! But it’s still neat to see them taking steps in this direction,
