The Geekly Standard
Easybake Killer Android
by Desiree Schell on March 12, 2011
Based on two recent technological advances, here’s a simple recipe for an undetectable robot death machine.
- Take one part ever-more-realistic-looking human simulacrum.
- Mix in a dollop of cellular circuitry.
Genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits. Using yeast cells, a group of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has taken a groundbreaking step towards being
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Bite-Sized Eraserhead
by Nick Glossop on March 11, 2011
I haven’t had much success convincing people that there ought to be a remake of Eraserhead, or that it ought to be in 3D, or that it should star Glen Beck. Sadly, that concept is likely to remain a dream. My hearty thanks, therefore, to Lee Hardcastle for this 60 second retelling of David Lynch’s unparalleled mind-bender. No Beck, no chicken hemorrhage spraying out of the screen – but I …
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Lego Moloko-Plus
by Nick Glossop on March 11, 2011
There is a bunch of iconic movie scenes in Lego over at Bored Panda. Since Kubrick is fairly popular here at the PS, I grabbed these two. Now we’ve got both friends and playmates.…
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Masters Of Sci-Fi – Who Birthed Whom
by Nick Glossop on March 11, 2011
A brilliantly artistic – and somewhat colonic – representation of the history of science fiction. Artist unknown, although apparently it is a submission in this contest.
(h/t Roger Ebert via Wily Badger)…
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Gong Show: Exploring metal sound with Karen Stackpole
by Andrew Loewen on March 10, 2011
Musician and oud maestro Derek Monypeny tips me (and now you) to the sonic wonders of Karen Stackpole‘s obsession with the metallic music of the gong. Listen to a collaboration between Stackpole and Die Elektrischen from Machine Shop here. And watch below as she “illuminates the science, history, and construction of gongs, tam-tams, and metallophones”; beneath that, a look in on the composition process of the aforementioned experimental …
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Popcorn By Cannon
by Nick Glossop on March 10, 2011
From the nation that gave us gunpowder – the popcorn cannon. Can I trademark Cannon Korn?
Chinese Popcorn Cannon – Watch more Funny Videos
Via Break…
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Mirror mirror
by Malcolm Parker on March 9, 2011
Here’s someone who needs to watch more sci-fi movies (I know, Alien 3 isn’t great, but it’s got its moments, what with the hot bald-Ripley and allusions to Passion of St. Joan) and read some good doppleganger fiction. He would then know that building a robot likeness of yourself is going to end with one of you dead, you, and the robot sexing up your women (and they like it), raping and/or …
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It’s 2011, where are my Alien friends? Charlie Sheen won’t do
by Michelle Lovegrove Thomson on March 8, 2011
On the cusp of 2010, I eagerly anticipated what Arthur C. Clarke hopefully called “the year we make contact”. No such luck. Clarke himself passed away in 2008 after 90 revolutions around the Sun, never knowing if one of his foremost wishes for humanity would come true.
Over at SEED Magazine Geoffrey Miller proposes an intriguing hypothesis on why we haven’t met any aliens yet: they, like us, are too …
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You Call That A Cookbook? THIS Is A Cookbook.
by Craig Elliott on March 8, 2011
For starters, for weeks now, I’ve wanted to stand up and scream, “Would you please just look at this freaking cookbook?”
But it actually seems like a bit of a disservice to call it a cookbook and leave it at that, when in fact, it is former Microsoft CTO/cooking hobbyist Nathan Myhrvold’s 6 volume, 2400 page Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. Suggested retail price: $650.
I’m …
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The Typewriter: A Vocal Performance History
by Andrew Loewen on March 1, 2011
Michael Winslow’s 21-minute recitation of the history of the typewriter from the 1890′s to the 1980′s. People are awesome.
History of the typewriter recited by Michael Winslow from SansGil—Gil Cocker on Vimeo.
(Hat tip to the great Nanaimo poet Peter Culley)…
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Thomas Pynchon’s Sofas
by Nick Glossop on February 24, 2011
Take A Load Off
I seem to recall having had more than one testy tete-a-tete while perched on the edge of this very piece of furniture. The original prototype is owned by Dr. Hilarius who makes use of it in psycho-analytical practice (having obtained it in the hotly contested, but rarely mentioned crying of lot 48). Rest upon these eggs and tell me of your childhood…
For those suffering …
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The Tragedy of Angry Birds
by Craig Elliott on February 22, 2011
There is a war going on, a war between birds and pigs. So far as we know, it all started when the pigs stole and ate the birds’ eggs, though there are pig historians who claim that such a thing never really happened, that it’s all just bird propaganda. Most regard them as propagandists themselves, of the worst kind.
But this is a war that’s grown more and more ugly …
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