Strange alien world made of 'hot ice'

Strange alien world made of 'hot ice' - space - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist Space
"Although the parent star is much cooler than the Sun, the planet orbits 13 times closer to the star than Mercury's orbit around the Sun. That means the surface must be a blazing hot 300° C or more, keeping water in its atmosphere in vapour form.

But the high pressures in the planet's interior would compress the water so much that it would stay solid even at hundreds of degrees Celsius – the expected temperatures inside the planet. There are a variety of exotic 'hot ice' states possible in such conditions, with names like 'Ice VII' and 'Ice X'."

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

Melt Banana is opening for Tool for the next month or so, leaving the tour 2 WEEKS BEFORE COMING HERE!!!

DAMMIT!

Tomahawk opened for them the last time they were here and kicked all kinds of ass. Melt Banana would be the next best thing this time.

Best of the Week - May 18, 2007

Okay, here's another go-around.

Best Movie: Well, I didn't make it out to the theater this week, and I'm really looking forward to 28 Weeks Later. But since I haven't seen it yet, it doesn't make the list. The week started off strong with a viewing of The Giant Spider Invasion and multiple flashbacks to my original childhood viewing of the film. Nostalgia almost makes this the best of the week, but not quite.

Saw The Fountain Tuesday night, and though the girlfriend did not care for it, I was very impressed. Solid acting from Wolverine and the girl from The Mummy. Very nice visual sense that more than makes up for that dreadful piece of crap (that everyone else seems to love) Requiem for a Dream. Ugh.

I don't know why reviewers found this film to be confusing. Of course reviewers are usually barely literate, much less able to follow a non-linear narrative. Anyway, it was pretty good, I thought, and was definitely the best movie I saw all week.

Best TV: Heroes didn't make the cut. It wasn't bad, and the fist-through-the-head bit was pretty nicely done, but the big payoff is going to be next week's finale.

Lost came close, but I generally don't care for the Charlie-centric episodes and this was one of them. Nice twists and turns, but not quite up to last week's excitement. Season finale for this one is next week too!

No, for me the best of the week was The Office season finale. It really had everything: comedy, drama, romance, horror, and something else, I'm sure. Dwight Schrute, co-manager of a bed and breakfast in Hell was inspired. As was the exchange rate between Schrute Bucks and Stanley nickels.

After next week there'll be no new American tv that I know of (or that I'm interested in), although I think NBC is going to burn off the Studio 60 episodes they have banked. After that, who knows?

Last week's Doctor Who almost made the top of the list this week for some reason. It just clicked with me, but the previews for the rest of the season look incredible. Captain Jack returns and Derek Jacobi plays a role!!! I expect it will be what I talk about most in this spot in the weeks to come, along with catching up on episodes of the new season of Trailer Park Boys.

Best Reading Material: I read the first 2 volumes of the manga, Dragon Head, but wasn't too impressed. I don't know if I'll get any more. Maybe if they're on sale. The weekly comics were pretty weak, with nothing really making much impression. DC's Countdown was horrible. It gets two more shots before I cut it loose. Morrison's Batman was extremely forgettable, as was the story finale in Uncanny X-Men (Brubaker's only weak spot) and the series finale of The Ultimates. Ex Machina lurches along making virtually no impact at all, but it's still well done. Mighty Avengers was entertaining, but it would be nice for the story to really get moving.

Best of the week was Warren Ellis' Blackgas 2 #2. Zombie horror and extraordinarily bleak ending. No one is safe, that's for sure.

Best Music: No new music this week, but I've been listening to old Bowie, Clutch (of course) and Tool. Tool's coming in concert in July. Or at least they say they are. We'll see if they actually show up this time. I don't know who's opening for them. Isis opened for them in the fall leg of the tour and that would have been nice. I don't think we'll get that lucky.

Or Is It?

Flight of Battlestar Continues

Contrary to comments by Edward James Olmos (Adm. Adama) at the Saturn Awards on May10, no end has been announced for the award-winning show. Battlestar Galactica is preparing to film its fourth season, one that will include 22 episodes, rather than the previously announced 13.

"For those of you who have been paying attention over the years, this is not the first time Eddie has made an announcement about the possibility of the show's end," chuckled Eick. "I promise you that when [executiuve producer] Ron [Moore] and I make a decision about Galactica's future, we'll let you know."

"Galactica" Last Season Official

"Galactica" Last Season Official

Stars Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff told The IESB at the Saturn Awards Thursday night that the SciFi Channel will officially pull the plug on the show following its fourth season, which begins in January.

Best of the Week - May 11

I thought I'd try something new (since I don't seem to be writing much) this week. My bests of the week. I'll try to do this each Friday, so long as my interest holds up. We'll see how long that'll be.

Best Movie: Not much movie watching this week. Although last week I did get to see Hot Fuzz and it kicked everything's and everyone's ass. Don't cross that film, it's packing heat. I don't think I liked it as much as Shaun of the Dead, but then I'm a zombie film obsessive and not a cop film obsessive. I don't think there's much difference in the quality of the two films, just a personal preference for the walking dead. That said, there were quite a few extremely gory moments in Hot Fuzz that took me by (pleasant) surprise. The two best had to be the tribute to The Omen and the spike through the chin and out the mouth "bit". Very nicely done.

For the future, I just bought the Alejandro Jodorowsky DVD set, and can't wait to get a chance to watch El Topo and Holy Mountain again. Maybe next week. Or sometime while my girlfriend is at work or sleeping.

Best TV: Damn, but there was a lot of good tv this week. Heroes started the week off strong as it builds toward the first season finale. I didn't care for this show too much when it started out, but I stuck with it (mainly since there isn't much good science fiction on television), and it has paid off. I'm loving it. It could have easily been my best tv viewing of the week.

Then Lost shows up and knocks it out of the park again, this time with flashbacks to Ben's childhood on the island (with Uncle Rico as his asshole dad!!!), and a Locke-centric story that ended with a monstrous cliffhanger. There was gunfire involved, a big pit of skeletons, and an invisible friend. Oh my. Surely that would top the week.

Then My Name is Earl aired its season finale last night, and once again jumped to the top of my viewing list. Earl got a new girlfriend, lost the new girlfriend, and then confessed to a crime he didn't commit to keep Joy out of prison and home with her family. The Trailer Park Boys similarities are complete now, as Earl finishes his season by going to jail. Nice.

That was followed by another brilliant episode of The Office. This time it featured Beach Day, a survivor-inspired search for Michael's possible replacement, sumo wrestling, and fire walking. Creed again displayed what a freak he is, Toby made me very sad, and Pam opened up to the group. Next week is the season finale and I can't wait.

So I can't pick which was best. These were definitely the four highlights (especially since I haven't watched this week's Doctor Who or new Trailer Park Boys yet).

Best Reading Material: I've been reading short stories lately in an attempt to get inspired to write my own. Right now I'm reading Jeremy Robert Johnson's Angel Dust Apocalypse and really enjoying it. Each story is pretty messed up and very entertaining. I just finished his short novel Extinction Journals and loved it. It's about a man who survives a nuclear holocaust thanks to the suit he made. He sewed living cockroaches all over it and they help him survive in the post-apocalyptic world. This is a continuation/sequel to a short story in ADA, where the cockroach suit wearer has a run-in with the President of the USA in the ruins of Washington. The President survived thanks to his suit made of Twinkies. Good, clever stuff.

Comics-wise, best of the week is a tie between Matt Fraction & Ed Brubaker's Immortal Iron Fist #5 and Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts #114. I tried out DC's new weekly series Countdown, and it was okay. I'll check it out for a few more weeks, but I don't foresee a longterm commitment being made. Oh well. If DC wants my money, they'll just put Grant Morrison in charge of things and make him write everything.

Best Music: Not much music-wise happening this week, although I did subject my girlfriend to the new Dio/Black Sabbath tunes. She didn't like them. I think she may have been born before her god made ears. Heh heh.

I've mainly just been putting my mp3 player on shuffle and playing Clutch while I work. Or occassionally Kiss. I dug out my old ZZ Top tunes for a refresher and, as it was the first time all those years ago, there were a few gems, but not much I really cared about.

Clutch's new cd From Beale Street To Oblivioun is pretty good, but lacking something I can't quite put my finger on.

The new NIN sucks pretty hard. Nice single. Rest of the cd sucks. If I'd never listened to anything on Mike Patton's Ipecac label then maybe this would have sounded fresh or exciting or edgy. Instead it just sounds weak and crappy.

Didn't care much for the new Bjork either.

I did just receive a couple of cds by J.G. Thirlwell's Manorexia project. It was a couple of weeks ago, but since this is my first entry, I'll include mention of them. They're really good, moody, instrumental pieces that make me feel like I'm in a creepy-weird film. More orchestral than his Steroid Maximus projects, and not really as fun, but still worth taking a listen to.

Goodbye Bees (From Harper's Magazine)

Researchers investigating the collapse of honeybee colonies in Europe and the Americas identified several possible reasons for the catastrophe: poor diet; radiation from mobile phones that disturbs bees' sense of navigation so they cannot fly home; increased solar radiation due to the thinning of the ozone layer; bee AIDS; stress from cross-country travel in trucks; falling queen fertility; the microsporidian fungus Nosema ceranae; or imidacloprid, a pesticide sold under the brand name Gaucho and banned by France in 1999 for spreading “mad bee disease.” Investors were advised to put their money in gold and corn futures to profit off the recession that may result from the disruption of the food chain caused by the vanishing bees. Grapes, which self-pollinate, and olives, which are pollinated by the wind, will not be affected by the bees' disappearance; Christians pointed out that the Book of Revelation predicts that a famine sparing grapes and olives will precede the apocalypse.

Doctor Dressed As Super Hero Accused Of Sex Assault

Doctor Dressed As Super Hero Accused Of Sex Assault - Local News Story - WKMG Orlando

"Authorities said Adamcik was in possession of a large burrito and drugs."

Stupid Plot Tricks

Stupid Plot Tricks

Vonnegut's rules for short stories

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.*

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The trouble with being human these days: Identity by Zygmunt Bauman

The trouble with being human these days: Identity by Zygmunt Bauman

" Inevitably, the undermining of familiar institutions, an aspect of modernity that has certainly been intensified in recent years, has had important consequences for people's sense of identity. There is nothing new about the observation that national and class-based identities (both of which had seemed almost definitively modern) have been upset by the end of the Cold War and various other developments discussed under the heading of 'globalisation'. Similarly, Bauman notes that while the workplace was traditionally a very important source of personal identity, changes in the economy have rendered it far less reliable. He suggests that the enduring identities once associated with work have given way to looser and more provisional identities, and conceptions of community, that are subject to constant change and renegotiation. Indeed, Bauman points to a more profound transformation of how we understand what it means to be human in the absence of transcendent ideologies (traditional or otherwise) such as have characterised modernity until recently."

Scientists discover 'shadow person'

Scientists discover 'shadow person' | COSMOS magazine
"Ever feel as though you're being followed? As if someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be your ‘shadow person', created by unusual activity in a specific brain region, a new study shows.

The paper, published in the British journal Nature, describes the case of a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric problems who was being evaluated for treatment of epilepsy. When a region of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction was electrically stimulated, the woman described encounters with a ‘shadow person' who mimicked her bodily movements.

"Electrical stimulation repeatedly produced a feeling of the presence of another person in her extra-personal space," said Olaf Blanke, co-author of the study conducted by a team of researchers from University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland.

When the patient was lying down, stimulation of this brain region caused her to feel that someone was behind her. She described the person as young, of indeterminate sex, "a shadow who did not speak or move, and whose position beneath her back was identical to her own", according to the researchers.

When the patient sat up, leaned forward and clasped her knees, she felt that the figure was also sitting, embracing her in its arms - a feeling she described as "unpleasant"."

Bizarre hexagon spotted in Saturn’s clouds

"Astronomers can’t explain six-sided pattern at planet’s north pole"

Blimps to swim through the air like fish

Blimps to swim through the air like fish - space - 23 March 2007 - New Scientist Space
"Blimps steered by artificial muscles may one day swim through the air like fish, suggest recent flight tests. The blimps would be much quieter than those steered by traditional blimp propellers, making them ideal for observing wildlife."

A mysterious aerial device falls in Somalia.

A mysterious aerial device falls in Somalia.

"Ilyas spoke of the device, telling that in the daylight it glitters and in a nighttime, it turns lights and speaks a strange language which can’t be understood by the villagers."

Men sentenced for running castration 'dungeon'

Men sentenced for running castration 'dungeon' - CNN.com

'Nuff said.

Puppet Masters 2

Mind-Control Microbe
"When he looked at the clinical records of more than 1,800 babies born from 1996 to 2004, he noted a distinct trend: The normal sex ratio is 104 boys born for every 100 girls, but in women with high levels of antibodies against the parasite, the ratio was 260 boys for every 100 girls. Exactly how the parasite might be tipping the odds in favor of males isn't understood, but Flegr points out that it is known to suppress the immune system of its hosts, and because the maternal immune system sometimes attacks male fetuses in very early pregnancy, the parasite's ability to inhibit the immune response might protect future boys as well as itself."

American Civil Liberties Union : How the USA PATRIOT Act redefines "Domestic Terrorism"

American Civil Liberties Union : How the USA PATRIOT Act redefines "Domestic Terrorism"
"The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism."

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard dies

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard dies

Fort Eustis drill sergeant faces charges of molesting trainees

ARTICLE: Fort Eustis drill sergeant faces charges of molesting trainees
"The soldier told Estrada that he felt depressed after being relieved of his training status, and said Estrada suggested "a technique that he had used previously to help soldiers with their self-confidence and alleviate depression," the affidavit said.

The technique involved role-playing scenes from a pornographic movie, which depicted a Superman character weakened by Kryptonite as the subject of sexual torture.

"Estrada would verbally describe a sexual act of torture, relating to the pornographic movie, and (the victim) was to respond in a sexual manner by moaning," the affidavit said. The soldier also said he eventually was forced to "dress in a 'Superman' or similar outfit" while Estrada performed sexual acts on him."