Mars Pre-Lab

Saturday, 3 October 2015 02:44
dr_phil_physics: (red-planet-spacesuits)
We plan to see The Martian on Saturday. And I'm about as ready as I can be.

This was not the original weekend that The Martian was supposed to open. And it still has gotten stiffed at the local IMAX, boxed in by Everest and The Walk. So we'll go see it in 3D in Holland.

I am way behind on some of my reviews. Andy Wier's book The Martian I never got around to reviewing, because I ended up sick and in the hospital. As for the other pre-lab items...

I'll insert my perennial complaint about the year when Mission to Mars and Red Planet came out -- the last time we had big budget Mars manned mission movies. Both were flawed and both felt that going to Mars wasn't interesting or exciting enough, so they had to invoke aliens.

Sigh.

And there were technical flaws, too. Still, they were pretty films. Just wasted good casts on dumb scripts.

A few weeks ago we bought a DVD of Race to Mars -- a Canadian/French production that we hadn't heard of. But Martin Shoemaker mentioned on Facebook that it was on sale at Amazon and wasn't half bad. They did a nice job for not having a huge budget, though I do have some comments and crits to make when I get around to do a review Real Soon Now. But if you're a space bug, you should check it out.

And then there's the webcomic Mare Internum by Der-shing Helmer. It's updating slowly and I'm not sure where the hell it's going -- but it is beautiful to look at and mesmerizing. Check it out and stick with it. It's very much worth it so far. Even better after NASA's announcement about water on Mars this week... As with a lot of slowly evolving webcomics I read, you might want to stay for the comments to get insights on what's going on.

I even just finished tonight revising my Mars story "Billionaire" which earned an Honorable Mention in the WOTF Q3 2015 contest. Plan on sending it out to F&SF and Analog Real Soon Now. We were out of town when the 30 June deadline came along and I didn't have a printer, so Mrs. Dr. Phil hasn't read that story yet.

I've not dwelt much on reviews, either print/online/friend, but plenty of comments that it is as good as the trailers were looking. So we are very excited.

I have a bad feeling I'm going to read a lot of science literacy book reports on The Martian this semester... (evil-grin)

Dr. Phil

UPDATE: Oh, I was going to mention that I ended buying an eBook of The Martian for the Kindles. Had intended to finish it before the movie, but didn't. Forgot about Amazon's Matchbook program, where they discount Kindle books you've bought from them in print -- and they don't make it easy to find. I bought The Martian on sale, but would've saved like two bucks if I'd remembered Matchbook. I think this is the second time I've used Matchbook.
Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal
dr_phil_physics: (Default)
And Keeping Software Running Long Beyond Some Software Company's Expiration Date

Once again the genius behind xkcd strikes again.



I recently got great help with some websites discussing hardware from ten years ago. And I worry that our collective wisdom will evaporate as people's websites decay and people no longer pay for the hosting and even the Wayback Machine doesn't get funded because too much stuff is too archaic by someone's standards.

Yeah, I worry a lot...

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (princess-leia-bikini)
Another Web Comic

Just another small Internet timewaster.

Found this via a Facebook entry from friend Jim Wright: Star Wars as it might have been. The link is to the first panel in the series -- just click Next to keep going. There's a wee bit of revisionist stuff in "Episodes 4, 5 and 6", based on the dreaded Prequel Trilogy. (evil grin)

Enjoy.

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (computer-engineer-barbie)
Once Again XKCD Proves Itself Exactly Right

How many times have I run into this on so many university and college websites?



This.

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (Default)
How Can Simple Stick Figures Be So Realistic?

Yesterday I posted about a brilliant xkcd web comic. Today I was lurking around the Internet and accidentally found this entry from Chris Robertson which contains a video homage to xkcd number 442, which itself is a homage to a Discovery Channel commercial "I Love The World". (whew!)
Noam Raby animates a song by Olga Nunes with images and lyrics from an XKCD strip by Randall Munroe, and the result is awesomeness.


I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo.



This is so meta I can hardly stand it. (huge grin)

Dr. Phil
dr_phil_physics: (hello-kitty)
Hello Cthulu

I saw that on a T-shirt at WisCon in 2004. Thought it was really funny. So I was looking for the artwork when I found a webcomic Hello Cthulu.


You've been warned.

Dr. Phil

Profile

dr_phil_physics: (Default)
dr_phil_physics

April 2016

S M T W T F S
     1 2
3 4567 89
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Links

Email: drphil at

dr-phil-physics.com

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Thursday, 29 May 2025 11:55
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios