The title is a bit inflated, but the subject is fascinating. Kevin Loria writes for Business Insider: [Researcher Jules Davidoff] says that without a word for a color, without a way of identifying it as different, it’s much harder for us to notice what’s unique about it — even though our eyes are physically seeing…
Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.
Patrick Hipes, for Deadline: Denis Villeneuve is in negotiations to direct the sequel to Blade Runner, with Harrison Ford previously asked but now confirmed to be reprising his role as Rick Deckard. Ridley Scott, who directed the iconic 1982 sci-fi pic for Warner Bros, is aboard to executive produce for Alcon Entertainment. Exciting times.
Alex Davies, for Wired: They’re serious about this, too. It’s not a proof of concept, or a scale model. It’s the real deal. “It’s not a test track,” CEO Dirk Ahlborn says, even if five miles is well short of the 400-mile stretch of tubes Musk envisions carrying people between northern and southern California in…
Just to put it into perspective: The quasar’s black hole dwarfs the one at the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which has mass of three million suns.
Blomkamp: I want this film to feel like it is literally the genetic sibling of Aliens. So it’s, Alien, Aliens, this movie. I’m game.
Helen Thomson, for New Scientist: As with many unprecedented procedures, there may also be concerns about a slippery slope. In this case, it would be whether this would eventually lead to people swapping bodies for cosmetic reasons. However, Scripko – who doesn’t believe the surgery will ever happen – doesn’t think this applies here. “If…
Dr. Barron H. Lerner, for the NYTimes: The range of responses to these noises is broad, from irritation to disgust to anger. Some sufferers even respond with verbal or physical aggression to those making the noises. One woman reported wanting to strangle her boyfriend in response to his chewing. As someone with (self-diagnosed) misphonia, I…
You may remember this chestnut: [Tron (1982)] was disqualified from receiving an Academy Award nomination for special effects, because the Academy felt at the time that using computers was “cheating.” I believe what we’re seeing now is a different branch on the same tree. Neill Blomkamp has an idea why performance capture artists may be seen…
Veronique Greenwood, for BBC Future: The experience can be overwhelming, akin to having a bright light shown in one’s face while one tries to go about one’s business. “Normally I would refrain from using the word ‘most’,” he relates. “I would never write it. I’d find an alternative. It distracts me, and all I can…
When I was a kid it occurred to me that all this talk of uploading the mind was problematic. The map is not the territory! I don’t want a copy of me, I want true migration. Transference. So, kid-me reasoned that the only way to achieve this would be by gradually coaxing the working mind…
Sean Raymond, for Nautilus: If you were standing on the surface of a planet like this, the Sun would remain fixed in one spot on the sky. The hemisphere facing the star is in constant daylight and the far hemisphere in constant darkness. In between lies a ring of eternal sunset, quite possibly the most…
UC Berkeley mathematics professor Edward Frenkel, for the NYTimes: What this research implies is that we are not just hearing different “stories” about the electron, one of which may be true. Rather, there is one true story, but it has many facets, seemingly in contradiction, just like in “Rashomon.” There is really no escape from…
According to the Deadline exclusive: … Assuming a script comes in to his satisfaction, Spielberg hopes to direct that film. If I were to condone an Indiana Jones reboot (actually, more like a prequel), Chris Pratt would be the front runner to play Indy. Spielberg agrees. Lucas is pushing for a CGI puppet.
Matthew Butterick, posting on his web-based project, Practical Typography: As a writer and toolsmith, I’ve found the rush to embrace these systems perplexing. Not because I’m curmudgeonly. Not because I fail to understand that people, including writers, enjoy things that are free and convenient. Rather, because gentle scrutiny reveals that these systems are powered by…
Nautilus: Time does not pass, and the past and future are as real as the present. If your common sense rebels against this idea, it is probably for a single reason: the arrow of causality. Events in the past cause events in the present which cause events in the future. If time really is like…
I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. Amazing guy. So sad.
I am excited. There wouldn’t seem to be much wiggle room between Prometheus and Alien, which this upcoming film purports to be nestled betwixt. I just hope that it’s dark, whatever it is. I want to feel that sense of dread again.
Balloons have never been safe since.
Finally we’ll know which pet to get, and what it rhymes with.
In the Borgesian library of Many Worlds, it seems there can be no fact of the matter about what is or isn’t you, and what you did or didn’t do. I believe the multiverse exists and doesn’t exist at the same time.
Still so much to see.
There should be a line of travel books centered around this information. Shush Guides.
At what point can we rely on things to be what (and where) we think they are?
Settle in, this Jony Ive profile is a meaty one.