If you've got the space at your next BBQ, the Boxman is a swanky alternative to the plebeian tent or—gag!—lowly picnic table. Made from a converted shipping container, you're guaranteed to make your friends and neighbors feel inadequate. More »
“Dragons? Awesome. Napoleonic wars? Awesome. Together? Even more awesome.” So said Naomi Novik in kicking off yesterday’s Comic-Con panel on combining genres. Novik was so happy with that particular mishmash that she used it in her Temeraire series, which reared its dragony head for the sixth time with the publication of Tongues of Serpents this month.
All of the authors on the panel write in genre-bending styles, but they use the technique differently, and their reasons for doing it vary, too. Novik said her motivation for crossing the streams was simple: “It’s absolutely for short attention spans. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup theory.”
Daryl Gregory, author of The Devil’s Alphabet (“transcription divergence syndrome” turns residents of small town into three different kinds of monsters—sci-fi/small-town drama), said it allows authors to reach out to more readers: “It lets you combine things and bring someone into something new. If they know dragons but not regency fiction, you can bring them in.”
Messing with genre came more serendipitously to Justin Cronin, author of the bestseller The Passage (immunity-boosting drug made from bat virus turns humans into vampirish things; apocalypse ensues), the movie rights to which were bought by Ridley Scott. Cronin said he used to write “regular fiction,” but then questioned it when his 9-year-old daughter became concerned it might be boring. So he planned The Passage in consultation with her. “The one rule we had was be interesting. That was the goal. The Passage is a combination of all genres, everything I loved. Adventure novels, postapocalyptic stories, Westerns, Thrillers, Poe, in a big happy bag. You put ideas together, they have idea sex.”
So fusing genres is inclusive, sexy, and fit for the short-attention-spanned. But it’s not all smiles and sunshine.
China Miéville, creator of the Lovecraft-inspired New Weird style, said the “aesthetic arithmetic” didn’t always wind up as described by Novik. “Awesome plus awesome is not always two awesomes. Sometimes it’s an abomination. Like Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.” (Apparently, taste in confections is a pretty subjective thing.) He said that the mashup style is not as new as it’s sometimes thought, and sometimes it’s just “gimmicky marketing…It’s the classic Hollywood formula: it’s dinosaur love story; it’s steampunk cookery.”
And other panelists came up with a couple of combinations that should never be perpetrated upon the reading public: young-adult erotica and driver’s ed books with unreliable narrators.
The Sprint Evo 4G does a lot of things brilliantly, but endurance is not one of them. Until this Mugen battery pack came along, granting Evo owners' wish of a full day's use on one charge. More »
That man in the top of this photo? That's Captain Brian Bews and he's lucky to be alive. The skilled pilot barely managed to eject before his CF-18 fighter jet crashed during a practice flight. Update: Video added. More »
We've completed the cylinder block and have purchased and cut the cylinder sleeves. The pieces we are making now clamp the cylinder sleeves to the block (think of attaching old VW cylinders to the case with studs). The machining process can be seen live here.
We have also started working on the c
Coitus as Revealed by Ultrasound in One Volunteer Couple.
“The anatomy and function of the G-spot remain highly controversial. Ultrasound studies of the clitoral complex during intercourse have been conducted to gain insight into the role of the clitoris and its relation to vagina and urethra during arousal and penetration. Aim. Our task was to visualize the anterior vaginal wall and its relationship to the clitoris during intercourse. Methods. The ultrasound was performed during coitus of a volunteer couple with the Voluson(R) General Electric(R) Sonography system (Zipf, Austria) and a 12-MHz flat probe. The woman was in a gynecologic position, and her companion penetrated her with his erected penis from a standing position. We performed a coronal section on the top of the vulva during the penetration. Main Outcome Measure. We focused on the size of the clitoral bodies before and after coitus. Results. The coronal section demonstrated that the penis inflated the vagina and stretched the root of the clitoris that has consequently a very close relationship with the anterior vaginal wall. This could explain the pleasurable sensitivity of this anterior vaginal area called the G-spot. Conclusions. The clitoris and vagina must be seen as an anatomical and functional unit being activated by vaginal penetration during intercourse.”
Photo: flickr/jemsweb
Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The pressing question this Penis Friday: how hard is hard enough?
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: What kind of erotic film clips should we use in female sex research? An exploratory study.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The G-Spot: nature vs. nurture.
WTF is NCBI ROFL? Read our FAQ!
They claim that it would make consumers feel some phones are safer than others without adequate scientific proof, and are thus suing the city of San Francisco to stop their mandatory radiation warning law. According to the FCC, all phones are safe below a certain SAR level; San Francisco says it just wants to inform users so that those concerned about radiation can more easily access that information. [Electronista] More »
Apple devotion as religious fanaticism is rhetorical old hat. Perhaps it is more than tired flamebait, though. The Atlantic points to a paper by Texas A&M's Heidi Campbell that lays out the four narrative myths that make Apple "divine": More »
Raw-food raid highlights a hunger Los Angeles Times 'How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?' one says. Regulators say the rules exist for safety and fairness. By PJ Huffstutter, Los Angeles ... |
Real duckweed has some way of quickly spreading out, maybe surface tension but artificial duckweed might use magnatization or other effects.
Any ideas on how this could be made to work?
The hard part will be preventing clumping.
Design criteria:
1. non toxic; children can eat it
All BYU student Nicholas Homer wanted was to enjoy life's simple pleasures: a warm day, a cold beer, a motorized couch to amble around campus in. But some things are just too beautiful for this world. More »
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I'm looking for a desktop replacement laptop. It needs to have at least a Core i3 processor, 3GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. Of course, more is always better, but I'm not looking to spend a fortune.
There are certain limmits in even the best Laptop, Keyboard, mouse [tho
I was travelling on Monday so couldn’t post the open thread and then forgot. But now that I think about I think Friday would be better in any case, because I don’t post much on the weekends. So again, questions, links, what you’re reading. You know my motto, “Don’t be stupid” (fwiw, posting links to flickr photos of your cats is not stupid).
While die-hards gear up for the Season 4 premiere this weekend, Jeffrey Stephenson gets working on a sweet reimagination of the PC that would fit right in at any mid-century office or living room. More »
Bracing for Bonnie...Medical plane crash...Probe: Pentagon child porn 9&10 News The Boston Globe obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Tea Party Express has accepted the resignation of its ... |
Chiptune fans and anyone nostalgic for a bygone, simpler era in electronic music will be delighted by Swedish tinkerer Linus Åkesson's ingenius Chipophone. The homemade instrument crams an 8-bit synthesizer into the body of a handsome old electric organ. More »
Yesterday evening we held our third annual Comic-Con panel on the science of science fiction. And in our unbiased opinion, it rocked. (Attendees said the same, but then they probably wouldn’t have told us it was lame, would they?)
One theme that emerged from the panel was that skillful use of science could make stories better. But being Discover, we needed some evidence. And how better to present this evidence than as a scientific publication:
The Enhancement of Dramatic and Aesthetic Qualities of Fictional Works Through Application of Authentic or Apocryphal Scientific Theories
Abstract: Anthropological evidence suggests humans have engaged in storytelling since at least the birth of complex culture. Over the past century, these stories increasingly take the form of science fiction, in which advances in science and/or technology figure prominently in the story. Here we present evidence supporting Carroll’s Hypothesis: that clear, consistent use of rules corresponding to real-world or even imagined scientific theories increases the artistic value of fictional works.
Methods: A panel of science-fiction experts was assembled at the San Diego International Comic-Con. Experts showed clips from films where successful use of scientific rules enhanced value and where unsuccessful use decreased value. The moderator was Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy blog), and the panel comprised Sean Carroll (Cosmic Variance, CalTech), Kevin Grazier (Science Not Fiction, JPL), Jamie Paglia (Eureka), and Zack Stentz (Fringe).
Results: Plait showed a clip from Armageddon in which rain falls on Bruce Willis as he stands on an asteroid. (We leave it to the reader to surmise the feasibility of this type of event.) Grazier showed a clip from the same film illustrating the effects of a massive asteroid impacting Earth, and pointed out inaccuracies in the depiction. He also showed a similar but much more scientifically accurate clip from Deep Impact. Plait argued that Armageddon is “the worst film ever made”; Grazier agreed.
Paglia showed a clip from Eureka in which tiny robotic “nanoids” self-assemble into human forms. The protagonists of the show use a speaker to broadcast powerful infrasound waves at the nanoids’ communication frequency, shaking the human-shaped nanoid collectives into dust. Paglia asserted that assuming the existence of the as-yet unrealistic nanoids, the internally consistent logic of their destruction led to a strong climax of a strong episode.
Stentz showed a scene from the film The Arrival, in which a radio astronomer who is fired from his job becomes a professional antenna installer and cleverly coordinates the antennae to operate with the power of a much larger one, much as the Very Large Array does. Stentz said the implausible aspect of the scene was actually not a scientific point: Charlie Sheen’s casting as a brilliant radio astronomer.
Discussion: An entirely subjective regression of the anecdotal data presented shows a strong causative connection between adherence to scientific rules (even imaginary ones) and artistic success of fictional works. Stentz pointed out one potential explanation for the connection: “Drama comes from a struggle–from characters not being able to do something they’re trying to do.” The rules of science can provide those obstacles–and also methods to circumvent them. Crucially, the science invoked should be internally consistent within the work. If writers use scientific-based miracles to advance plots, “that’s not science fiction, that’s science magic. That’s the line we try not to cross,” said Paglia.
The iPhone has been out for a while now, so the biggest RISK fans have most probably sought out generic versions of the game. But for those who haven't, EA has just released an ultra official RISK: The Official Game. More »
