CardiganLabs Presents:Zombie Safety

Recently I was asked to give a speech at Community College of Philadelphia that demonstrated my expertise on the topic of my choosing. For the speech I chose to present the CardiganLabs Approved© Zombie Safety Seminar entitled "Zombies & You:Protecting Your Brain in the Face of Ravenous Hunger". The above video documents said presentation. It should also be noted that the speech was later accepted into the Magner Nichols Annual Public Speaking and Monologue Competition at the college, where it garnered First Prize in the Public Speaking bracket. The event was gracefully hosted by Professor Kirsten Quinn, head of the Communication Arts Department at CCP, this past April 18th. A certificate of recognition will be presented to me by Professor Quinn at the 2008 Graduation Awards Ceremony on Friday, May 2nd at 6pm in the Bonnell Building on campus.
This achievement would not be possible without assistance from Jim Kauterman, Mario Castillo, Mike McCullough, Dr. Solong and the Science Patrol Team, and readers like yourself. Below is a picture of the guy on top of the trophy given at the Magner/Nichols competition. He belongs to You.

Legoverse: We're gonna need a bigger Brick.

Just when you thought it was safe to swim in an ocean made of interlocking bricks; this giant legoshark came along and ruined some poor minifig's refreshing swim.

Created by cbolego,
Linked via Klocki

an abstract concept used to monitor decay

The 48-Hour Film Project is an experiment in timed creativity. Does work produced under a timeline exhibit superior qualities? Your mileage may vary, but in the case of Timecatcher, the Project's 2007 international winner, the answer is certainly "yes."

Chrononauts may also be intrigued by this clock which vividly displays the decay of the hours.

Cute Monkeybot Uprising Imminent

This weekend I volunteered at the New York Comic-Con for some new friends of mine, the May brothers of SUMM Publications. TJ and Jason are a writer/artist duo who burst on the indie comics scene with their 2004 oneshot Ill Conceived, whose blend of macabre characters and cool dialogue reminds me of Clive Barker or Joe Hill's dark tales.

Recently, though, Jason's interests have taken a turn toward our common cybernetic future, creating a variety of robotic characters that have charmed countless pitiful humans into giving them good homes. With lovable visages, they lie in wait for the signal to begin harvesting our biomass, but until that day, we can call them our friends. (I adopted this one.) Be sure to check them out on Jason's Myspace page.

The Killbot Imperative

Flickr user darkpony is a pragmatic individual.

They're Not 'Toys'-Theyre Action Figures

If you are at all like me, then you are a connoisseur and collector of finely crafted and artistically imbued action figures. Mind you, I don't play with them, i just take them out of the box and arrange them in a glass case so i can pretend my office is a museum. See Here.
It is one thing, however, to collect action figures; it is quite another to man up and build your own. You can go on to trump that by creating action figures of your favorite franchises with amazing art inspired concept variants. For the highest achievement in the latter category, look no further than SILLOF's WORKSHOP , where you will find custom figure collections including (among other things) WWII SW, SteamPunk StarWars, Victorian Avengers, McQuarrie SW, and The Venture Bros-just to name a few.
It is imperative that you visit www.sillof.com to browse the full galleries, as what i have posted above is a paltry sample meant to whet your appetite. If you have any interest at all in the future of sculptural craftsmanship; you will heed my advice and pay SILLOF a visit. His website is way better than ours, anyhow.

Domo Arigato, Grandpa Roboto

Salute our robotic forefathers with this sweet shirt from Chopshopstore.

Saturn!

In working my way through the TED seminar archives, I'm going to continue to bring you those talks which exemplify the Code of the Science Patrol.

Carolyn Porco has flown to Saturn. She worked on the Cassini space probe which explored my future home and she was one of the first people to set sights on these amazing vistas of the methane seas of Titan, the mysterious polar plumes of Enceladus, and much more.

Food for Thought

According to this report, in which many interesting facts are laid out, the more than 15,000 networked PS3s at Stanford University represent more power than the largest supercomputer stack.

Pet Uprising Still Imminent

Further evidence uncovered of the eventual takeover of our race by machines that can not only out-think us, but out-frolic as well.

Spotlight: Extraterrestrials Among Us

Above: Senator John McCain, candidate for United States President, and Starnavigator Grig, fellow war hero and sauropod.

Dradis Contact! Set Condition One throughout the fleet.....

Whoever said ignorance is bliss was full of it. It sucks when you aren't in the know. Especially when the fourth and final season of the finest television show in production is about to air and you have no idea what is going on. I speak of Battlestar Galactica, as re-imagined for the SciFi Channel. Though it must suck be ignorant of such a prolific program, there is indeed a cure. Instead of sitting through the previous three seasons to get a handle on BSG you can click the button below and get the 8-minit clif's notes on the show. That way when season 4 airs on Friday night you can have your mind blown straight out the back of your head and onto the living room wall along with everyone else who wont shut up about how frak'n rad Battlestar is. Now you too can have the power to not shut up about the best thing that has happened to T.V. since vacuum tubes. So Say We All!

Re-Appropriation of Amber-Sconced Insects From Movie Sci-Fi

Using a technique called phase contrast micro-tomography, French scientists are uncovering insects trapped inside opaque amber.

A Babel Fish Substitute for Sci-Fi Readers

Do you ever get confused by the flying torrents of jargon in Dune or in the writings of Charles Stross? (His recent novel Accelerando had me befuddled for the first hundred pages until he started to explain his ideas in greater detail.) Some authors seem to make a point of mentioning theoretical technologies unfamiliar to present-day folk unequipped with a Babel Fish. (That's a genericized neologism of "neurolinguistic translator.")

Anyway, for those of us who need to claim authoritative knowledge in the field of fictional science, here are some words sci-fi readers should know, courtesy of the blog Geekend.