Beam Me Up Science Fiction in the news,on tv,at the movies or in print. Whatever is of interest to you and to me is fair game. I also discuss cutting edge science that just might influence new sci-fi Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 47 5373

Articles from Beam Me Up

75 words every sci-fi fan should know 2008-01-15 18:07:00 from Geekend by Jay Garmon 75 Words Every Science Fiction Fan Should Know. Because if you’re going to learn obscure words and concepts, it may as well be terms you’re actually likely to use. Alderson disk (n.)arcology (n.)areography (n.)astrogate (v.)avatar (n.)Bernal sphere (n.)chrononaut (n.)Clarke ring (n.)Clarke’s First Law (n.)Clarke’s Second Law (n.)Clarke’s Third Law (n.)computronium (n.) ...

Are You A Replicant? 2008-01-15 17:18:00 He say U bwade wunner! Hey you up for a Voight-Kampff? If you have to ask WTF is a Voight-Kampff then you won't get the joke. But if your geeky enough (oh yes, I am in that vein....I was the guy explaining to everyone else in the car what was happening, even with Ford's voice over!) you will want to rush right over to quibblo and get ready to laugh. Oh this is very tongue in cheek, but with ...

Robot servants in British homes 'within ten years' 2008-01-15 12:26:00 From The Daily Mail online as Shaun puts it "I Robot comes a step closer": Robot servants for the home will become a reality within ten years, according to experts at Britain's biggest technology retailer. Among the latest examples unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show(CES) in Las Vegas were the Spykee series developed by Meccano and Tribot and Rovio, from Wow wee. However, even more ...

Source of Mysterious Antimatter Found 2008-01-14 21:59:00 Shaun Saunders found a neat article written by Charles Q. Choi that appeared in Live Science online. The article deals with finding a source of large amounts of anti-matter that was discovered in the late 70s but no source could be found. That may have changed. Here are some excerpts. For decades, scientists had clues that a vast cloud of antimatter lurked in space, but they did not know ...

Prisoners to be "chipped" 2008-01-13 16:39:00 Shaun Saunders sends in an article from the Independant, an online magazine in the UK. He prefaces the article with this comment: Somewhere past tomorrow, where private thoughts are dangerous, and prisons don't have bars, is... Mallcity 14... Here is a cut from the article: (Officials) are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of ...

anthropowered future 2008-01-13 10:27:00 Space colonizers and MallCitizens take note: future regulations may require every individual to contribute daily to the local energy store, in lieu of taxes. For so suggests to me a recent Reuters story by Anna Ringstrom, in which a Swedish state owned company now warms its Stockholm offices using body heat emanating from the quarter million commuters walking below them through through ...

TOC: The Year's Best Science Fiction #25 2008-01-13 01:02:00 Thanks to the SF Signals' blog: Gardner Dozois has posted the table of contents for The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection:"Finisterra" by David Moles"Lighting Out" by Ken Macleod"The Ocean Is A Snowflake Four Billion Miles Away" by John Barnes"Saving Tiamaat" by Gweyneth Jones"Of Late I Dreamt Of Venus" by James Van Pelt"Verthandi's Ring" by Ian Mcdonald"Sea Change" by ...

An Open Letter to the Sci-Fi Channel 2008-01-12 22:25:00 Now you have heard me bitch about the Sci-fi channel's idiotic scheduling and show choices. I didn't think I could be that far off, and according to Marc Bernardin over at PopWatch blog, I am not. Marc echoes all my complaints over the past fuew months very well indeed! Here is a cut from the "letter" Dearest Sci-Fi, Why are you not way more awesome? Don't get me wrong, when you're ...

Cosmic Cloud on Collision Course 2008-01-12 13:13:00 It's large, it's fast, and it's heading toward the Milky Way. Less than 40 million years from now, a giant cloud of hydrogen gas, clocked at 250 kilometers per second, will smash into our home galaxy, likely setting off a huge burst of star formation. In fact, the cloud contains enough gas to form a million stars like our sun, astronomers reported. The crash will happen far from us, but it could ...

Virgin Galactic to Offer Space Cruise through Aurora Borealis 2008-01-11 15:47:00 Shaun sends in an article that I think anyone with a pulse would find exciting! From the Daily Galaxy online, I see that Virgin Galactic is not sitting on their laurels by any means. Richard Branson has been busy thinking up new ways to get people excited about private space tourism. He’s offering to fly anyone who can afford the trip, into the world’s biggest lightshow, the Aurora Borealis ...

FREE Podiobook Grey by Jon Armstrong 2008-01-11 01:30:00 Wow ready for some REALLY BIG NEWS!? Jesse Willis over at SFFAudio tells me that Philip K. Dick award nominee GREY by Jon Armstrong is available on Podiobooks.com for your listening pleasure. For free people! Sweet! click the podiobooks link or the article title for the audio url. ...

Planets in nearby solar system may have collided 2008-01-10 16:30:00 Shaun Saunders sends in an article, from Space.com, that reports on a study that suggests that 2 planets may have collided in a nearby solar system. An extrasolar planet about one-fourth the heft of Jupiter might have formed from the collision and merger of two planets. Known as 2M1207B, the object orbits a brown-dwarf star called 2M1207A located 170 light-years from Earth and seen in the ...

These Giant Blocs Are Made of People 2008-01-09 16:00:00 Ok, I know - science and science fiction Got it, so I slip in a gripe about the fcc's dead site, maybe I had a weak moment. Ready for another? Is this Science Fiction? Nope! is it Science? no way! But it is proof that we are now living in some sort of weird future that none of us in our wildest imagination would ever have conceived! How so you foolishly ask? Oooooooh let me enlighten you ...

The Difference Between SciFi and Fantasy 2008-01-09 15:33:00 From Unabashed via SFSignals, Matt Mitchell takes on a subject that has fueled many an argument. What exactly is the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction? Matt posits that science fiction differentiates itself from fantasy by being believable. He writes: We believe it because we want to believe fantastic things are possible, and this is especially the case with readers of SciFi. ...

NOMINEES: 2008 Philip K. Dick Award 2008-01-09 15:26:00 from Locus Online News via SF Signal: Nominees for this year's Philip K. Dick Award, given annually for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States, have been announced:Grey, Jon Armstrong (Night Shade) Undertow, Elizabeth Bear (Bantam Spectra) From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, Minister Faust (Del Rey) Nova Swing, M. John Harrison (Bantam Spectra) ...