Month: February 2013

Mrs. Peel, We are Needed.

“Granted, The Avengers’ vision of Britishness, while rooted in some truths about the national character, was pure fantasy. But it’s an attractive fantasy: this land where the heroes are tasteful yet fashionable, reserved yet lascivious, demure yet effective.”

Before Mulder and Scully, there was Steed and Peel: In the AV Club, Noel Murray sings the praises of “The Avengers’ stylish, lascivious vision of Britishness. I’ll confess that Mrs. Peel remains one of my earliest and enduring fanboy crushes. “[T]he secret to The Avengers’ ribaldry was that it isn’t just about sex: It’s also about power. Gale and Peel didn’t just flummox men with their beauty; they also had brilliant minds, and they kicked gents’ posteriors, routinely.” (Images via Heather McLendon.)

Sidekicks / Top Dog.

“You don’t snuggle Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris snuggles you. Hard. Like a superhero. If superheros liked snuggles (which they do, but only Chuck Norris is man enough to admit it). Chuck Norris’ foster mom once threw a tennis ball for him, and he brought back three tennis balls. Chuck Norris eats raw hides made from velociraptors in his spare time.”

The world’s coolest hound (and no, I’m not talking about any old affenpinscher) is not on the market. But if you’re looking for a canine companion, you could probably do worse than Chuck Norris. “Chuck Norris understands and approves of occasionally hanging out in a crate to protect the rest of the world from the power of his amazing…Chuck Norris invented the army crawl. Chuck Norris can win a game of connect four in three moves.”

Sail on, Sunjammer.

“The Sunjammer mission – the name is borrowed from an Arthur C. Clarke short story about an interplanetary yacht race — will unfurl a solar sail that dwarfs those that have thus far been tested in space. Where NanoSail-D’s diminutive sail measured just 100 square feet and Japan’s IKAROS measures something like 2,000 square feet, Sunjammer’s sail possesses a total surface area of nearly 13,000 square feet. Yet collapsed it weighs just 70 pounds and takes up about as much space as a dishwasher, making it easy to stow in the secondary payload bay of a rocket headed to low Earth orbit.“

Popular Science previews the flight of NASA’s Sunjammer, set for launch in 2014. “The destination for Sunjammer is the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable spot way out there between us and our nearest star…Sunjammer will be carrying the cremated remains of various individuals, including Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry.”

The Columbian Hills.

“The astronauts’ namesakes are situated within the Red Planet’s Gusev crater, about two miles away from where the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landed in 2004. And they were, for the rover and its earthly audience, the most striking feature on the observable Martian surface.”

An auspicious site for New Rome: Seven hills on Mars are named after the fallen astronauts of Columbia. “Spirit would go on to spend several years exploring the Columbia Hills until, struggling in the Martian soil, it would finally cease to function in 2010. Which — striving and striving, until you can strive no more — seems an appropriate tribute to seven people who gave their lives so that the rest of us might forge ahead.”

Tulip Time.

“Abstract rainbows of color fill the landscape in these beautiful photos by French photographer Normann Szkop who hopped in a Cesna with pilot Claython Pender to soar above the tulip fields in Anna Paulowna, a town in North Holland.” It’s a Mondrian kind of ground – Let him show you what he can do with it: In the eye candy department, tulip fields from the sky. “See the entire 100+ photograph set over on Flickr.”

Leeroy Rides Forth.

“Warcraft has grown to be one of the most popular multiplayer online role-playing games. Taking an almost kitchen-sink approach to fantasy, it is part fantasy, part science fiction and — depending on the game you’re playing — includes elements such as dragons and orcs, zombies and werewolves, aliens and spaceships.“

After years in development hell with Sam Raimi, two of my hobbies converge anew as Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones grabs the reins of the Warcraft film. Said Jones in 2010: “I’m hugely jealous of Sam Raimi. I really believe World of Warcraft could be the launch of computer games as good films…[I]t’s not worrying about how the game plays, it’s about creating the world of the game and investing the audience in that world.”

Game of Bricks.

“It took me and about 100 other builders a little over 4 months to build the whole thing. We estimate there are around 3000 unique buildings, all hand made and all fully decorated on the interior.”

Best build some wildfire…A group of audacious (and bored) GRRM-enthusiasts recreate the entirety of King’s Landing in Minecraft. I’ve yet to try Minecraft, since quite frankly I’m afraid to court another gaming addiction. But everything I read about it makes it seem like it’s eventually going to be the online world described in the namedroppy but compulsively readable Ready Player One.

The Bloodbath at Asakai.

“This past Saturday, one misplaced mouse click in MMORPG EVE Online sent a lone Titan spaceship hurtling into enemy territory, triggering a cascade of alliances somewhat akin to the run-up to World War I, and resulting in one of the largest space battles ever seen in the history of the game.”

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate..Finally on the MMO front and also languishing in the bookmarks, Tor recounts how one simple mistake caused an intergalactic catastrophe on EVE Online (another game I’ve never played.) “While EVE ships start at $1 and top out around $100, the Titan dwarfs them all by requiring around $7600 of time/investment. Thanks to a single wrong click on Saturday night, that money is gone, and thousands more with it (at one point the estimated number reached $150,000.)”