The Hodg-man further on nerds v. jocks

Hodgman elaborates on his speech in front of Obama.

End credit art

Landscape with the Axiom spaceship done Seurat style.

Here's something interesting: an interview with the creators of the end credits in "Wall-E." I loved that piece, a perfect blend of the history of Earth 2.0 and the history of art, culminating in 8-bit graphics to signal the start of a new computer era. Just like the "Watchmen" opening credits, the "Wall-E" ending is something I can watch over and over.

Well I, for one...

welcome our new ant overlords.

"Lost" in Space

The crew in conference. Yes, they're in a spaceship.

The "Virtuality" pilot (for now just a TV movie, unless a network picks it up) does what good a pilot should do: it sets the premise up, shows us the characters and setting, and gives us an idea of the potential stories of the various characters and devices.

The premise is ok enough, it's 2050, 12 people are manning Earth's first starship, which will take 10 years to reach the nearest star potentially capable of sustaining life. But that won't be enough to sustain modern audiences (much less SF enthusiasts) so they add a twist -- the astronauts' day to day lives are filmed and shown on earth as a reality show -- and a literal plot device -- personal virtual reality modules (think realistically portrayed Star Trek holodecks) that help while away the time AND serve as the ship's interface.

Each character has his/her issues that are illuminated through the "confessional" shots for the reality series and their VR worlds. From civil war reenactments to anime-inspired fantasies, each scenario is an episode in itself and a chance for the actors and writers to play around.

Oh, and there's a guy going around the VR worlds killing their VR selves.

Download it from your riendly neighborhood torrent site and support the call for a full series. We need more shows like this.

Oh, and yay, the ship uses an Orion drive.

Remembering Michael Jackson...

... can never be complete for me without viewing the best video ever. His legacy of weirdness lives on.

Revenge of the Nerds

John Hodgman is just brilliant. "You are addicted to that brand name smartphone that I cannot name for contractual reasons." :)) Oh, and for the record (no dunepedia or anything):

1. Shai-Hulud

2. Thumper

3. Water of Life

Declaration of Asses

Via Ricky Carandang's blog. The list of Congresscritters who approved the Con-Ass resolution.