Westworld: season 3 trailer (scifi TV series).
Here’s the 3rd season of the Westworld science fiction TV series, in which the robots stray outside the worlds of fake play, and into the grim real future. Anybody fancy a mass robot uprising?
Scifi
Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling (book review).
Translated from the German by Jamie Lee Searle, ‘Qualityland’ is Marc-Uwe Kling’s satirical novel of a future where everything is controlled by algorithms. Set in a European country now known as Qualityland, it’s like living inside Google: adverts, deliveries, partners, jobs and every other aspect of each person’s life is assessed, rated, personalised and provided […]
Anime & Manga
Reboot: The Definitive Mainframe Edition (DVD TV series review).
As the creators of ‘Reboot’ explain in their audio commentary, this was the first fully computer animated TV series that attracted children and adults alike. With no one knowing what was inside a computer, it gave them the freedom to make Mainframe the way they liked. Oddly, as the users, the humans when playing games […]
Gundam: real-scale walking mecha to become major Japanese tourist attraction (news).
If you like your Japanese mecha big, as in Gundam-size, then you’re in luck! The City of Yokohama in Japan is opening a tourist attraction which is basically a full-size Gundam base with a real-scale moving Gundam the same size as a NASA rocket launch gantry. They’re planning to open the site – called Gundam […]
TV
Westworld: season 3 trailer (scifi TV series).
Here’s the 3rd season of the Westworld science fiction TV series, in which the robots stray outside the worlds of fake play, and into the grim real future. Anybody fancy a mass robot uprising?
Doctor Who: Series 12 (or 37 depending on how you count): Episode 8: The Haunting Of Villa Diodati by Maxine Alderton.
As revealed in the end of last week’s episode, the Doctor and friends are going to gatecrash the Byron/Shelley party in June 1816 at Villa Diodati, Lake Geneva where Mary Shelley wrote ‘The Modern Prometheus’. Will it be re-written or will they contribute to the plot? Tales Of The Dead is Lord Byron’s contribution to […]
Culture
How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene (book review).
When I started Stanislas Dehaene’s book, ‘How We Learn’, with its sub-title adding the detail, ‘The New Science Of Education And The Brain’, I didn’t expect the opening chapter to focus on Artificial Intelligence. More so, as in the introduction, there was a lot more focusing on what made humans different to other members of […]
Reality Simulation In Science Fiction, Literature, Film and Television by Heather Duerre Humann (book review).
Looking at the examples cited by author Heather Duerre Humann in her introduction to her book ‘Reality Simulation In Science Fiction, Literature, Film And Television’, I’m looking forward to seeing her knowledge in the chapters of this book. Keep a notepad ready because you’re going to want to check out her examples from fiction, non-fiction, […]
Science
Space tourism finally gets going (news).
There’s now a company called Space Adventures which has teamed up with SpaceX to do the whole space tourism thing for low-Earth orbit flights with private citizens on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene (book review).
When I started Stanislas Dehaene’s book, ‘How We Learn’, with its sub-title adding the detail, ‘The New Science Of Education And The Brain’, I didn’t expect the opening chapter to focus on Artificial Intelligence. More so, as in the introduction, there was a lot more focusing on what made humans different to other members of […]
Books
Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling (book review).
Translated from the German by Jamie Lee Searle, ‘Qualityland’ is Marc-Uwe Kling’s satirical novel of a future where everything is controlled by algorithms. Set in a European country now known as Qualityland, it’s like living inside Google: adverts, deliveries, partners, jobs and every other aspect of each person’s life is assessed, rated, personalised and provided […]
How We Learn by Stanislas Dehaene (book review).
When I started Stanislas Dehaene’s book, ‘How We Learn’, with its sub-title adding the detail, ‘The New Science Of Education And The Brain’, I didn’t expect the opening chapter to focus on Artificial Intelligence. More so, as in the introduction, there was a lot more focusing on what made humans different to other members of […]
Recent Articles
Star Trek: that episode with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk (video).
Do you remember that early episode of Star Trek that featured both Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk? Nope, neither did we – but seeing is believing … especially in the universe of deep fakery!
Back Issue #18 October 2005 (magazine review).
With Green Lantern as drawn by Neal Adams on the cover and the proclamation that Back Issue # 18 is the ‘Big Green Issue’, it’s hardly surprising what the topic is. Surprisingly, the opening interview with Peter David is about the Hulk, although considering he regained his intelligence by going grey, might have been an […]
