I like musical theatre. I enjoyed The Phantom of the Opera on stage (not as much as, say, Chicago, but I enjoyed it). I was kind of thinking of going to see the movie version if I got the chance. Suzy McKee Charnas has some good reasons why I needn’t bother.
OK, I’ve definitely been watching too much Star Trek, but still, you gotta admit that a body-scanning holographic imager sounds like something that belongs in a Federation starship, not a clothing store!
An idea whose time has come (?): caffeinated beer. (May require registration.)
A while back I noted the similarity to Star Trek‘s tricorders of devices that could read DNA “bar codes” to identify different species; here’s another invention that has a definite tricorder feel to it. Alternatively, it could be I’ve simply watched too much Star Trek…
Remember when Genesis crashed to Earth? The first scientific samples of what at first appeared to be a total write-off have been shipped to researchers. Hoo-rah!
Do you think there are too many books being published? I do, when i look at this list of all the books being released in the U.S. on February 21–my own Lost in Translation amongst them. What were all those other publishers thinking? Didn’t they know MY book was coming out that day? Sheesh!
“Walter Twiddle” is, of course, an anagram of Edward Willett, courtesy of the Internet Anagram Server, which, by the way, is a place you do not wish to go unless you have time to waste. I did, obviously. Some additional anagrams for my name: A LEWD DIRT WELT – At least, that’s what my friends …
Having thus looked to the past with a Rawhide reference (and pretty much established, should there be any doubt, that I’m no longer a spring chicken), I now look to the future with this cool account of a spherical security robot.
“Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy.” We’re talking human cells fused with rabbit eggs, pigs with human blood, and possibly mice with human brains…so far. Wolfman Jack was ahead of his time.
If this proposal for a handheld DNA scanner to instantly identify species doesn’t sound like a prototype tricorder to you, you’re not watching enough Star Trek.
This caught my eye because of the Herculaneum column I wrote this week: in Rome, they continue to excavateNero’s buried palace, with unknown treasures still awaiting them in debris-choked halls and grottoes.
On August 24, 79 AD, Italy’s Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii in ash and Herculaneum in super-hot mud. Among the buildings entombed in Herculaneum was a great villa, built more than a century earlier by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso. Under 30 metres of rock-hard mud, the villa was forgotten–until well-digging workmen rediscovered it …
