Beam Me up blog is the sister/support site For the Beam Me Up podcast. It contains links, discussion and material that might be or have been discussed on the show. Also links to new show listings and material. Be sure to check out the live stream every Saturday at 4pm eastern at http://www.wrfr.org/links.html and select stream
“There are many asteroids that have very low relative velocities with respect to Earth,” Lu observed. Identifying an “ideal” NEO is one that’s both slow moving and comes close to Earth – sort of a match made in heaven. “Those are easy targets, they wouldn’t require a lot of rocket oomph to rendezvous with," he said.
Lu also said that the question now is 'How can already existing or currently planned Constellation hardware be used or minimally changed to permit other exploration agendas?'
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have successfully directed adult stem cells from mice to develop into bone and muscle cells with the aid of a custom-designed ink-jet printer and the use of "bio-inks." These inks consist of anything from proteins to individual cells printed in microscopic patterns. By printing layer upon layer of cell patterns, scientists may one day be able to "print" whole tissues or organs for replacement therapies.
9. Button eyes on dolls a choking hazard because "the weak have no place in 'playing house.'"
8. Inescapable playing of carols for one month actually a little-known torture technique from the Klingon Rite of Ascension.
7. Jack boots.
6. Nintendo II just a high-tech kiddie simulation of famous battles where the Empire reined triumphant.
5. Donner is a targ in drag.
4. Hey, he chooses to rough it out at the North Pole.
3. Penchant for whipping the reindeer even when they're already flying fast enough to reach every household in the world in just one night.
2. Climbing down through the chimney an infamous Klingon infiltration strategy.
1. 41,879,324 lumps of coal.
Some fear that the advent of "human black boxes" combined with the extension of medical, financial and other digital records will lead to loss of privacy and a dramatic expansion of the nanny state.
Others highlight positive advances in medicine, education, crime prevention and the way history will be recorded.
Well score one for Google Video! Seemed one enterprising soul decided to search for episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and hit pay dirt. Google Video reports about 27 some odd full episodes of the odd, ofttimes quirky Sci-Fi channel's science fiction movie send-up. For those of you that don't recall, mst3k was comprised of two wisecracking swapshop assemblages - robots and one very reluctant human, who are all marooned on an ancient space ship, by an evil mistress, and forced to watch the most awful assembly of cinematic trash. But our terrible threesome is not completely powerless. All through the movie we are inundated with rude thoughts, insane voice overs and observations often bordering on the obscene. The movies were often beyond terrible but the outrageous comments from the front row were often side splittingly funny. Check them out before they go away....
pac
The site is one of only six federally licensed launch centers in the nation.
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport has three more launches scheduled for 2007 and eventually could send supplies to the international space station or even tourists into space, said director Billie Reed.
Orbital Outfitters has the answer. The new Los Angeles-based companyy promises to dress the first space tourists and crew members in style.
"When someone puts on an IS3 (sub-orbital space suit), they will be protected by the best technology we cam muster, yet they will look like they've stepped off the set of a science fiction movie," said Orbital Outfitters president Rick Tumlinson.
"With billionaires funding the new space companies and passengers paying up to $200,000 for a ride, safety is important. We intend to also make it chic," Tumlinson said.
Now that's shiny.
Multiverse, maker of a free MMO-creation platform, announced that it's struck a deal with Fox Licensing to turn the show into an MMORPG in the fashion of Star Wars Galaxies or Eve Online.
Scientists say they have photographic evidence that suggests liquid water may have been on the planet as little as five years ago.
Experts say Mars now appears more active than previously thought and the latest study shows why it is vital to continue to search for life on our planetary neighbour.
After a major brain cramp last week, I finally remembered that you can catch missing episodes of Daybreak from the website. Unfortunately ABC has gone the cryptic route so the show is a bit hard to find for the streaming content. Here is the url http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing From there you can select the show you want to watch. As you know now, Daybreak is a mid season fill in for Lost in the Wednesday 9pm eastern time slot. After it's first episode Daybreak has continued to lose ground. I suspect that its not because Daybreak is not entertaining, but if others are anything like me, the time slot that Daybreak has been saddled with is its biggest problem. Which is odd, because I find and remember the other network sci fi offerings. I have a feeling that like a lot of other people, I am not used to tuning into ABC on Wednesdays (no I didn't mean that no one tunes in. Lost is wildly popular, but those fans are not taking to Daybreak and the show doesn't seem to be attracting any new viewers) I had a bad feeling about this weeks show. It appeared that once again we were going to be ground hogged to death. Oh don't get me wrong, Harper continues to find small clues every “day” but the bulk of the show is either running from the bad guys, getting beat up by the bad guys or shooting the bad guys. This weeks clues do seem to be leading towards some grand plan revelation. He discovers that the egg timer that he has been receiving in the mail has a fingerprint on it. And a second package sent to his sister has a picture showing an old murder. But the big surprise this week was that Harper's unchanging days...are not so unchangeable. After many repetitions of his partner calling him for help, Harper finally breaks over and spends a day trying to prevent his partners lover and one time colleague from suicide. Inexplicably, the next day, she calls him in the morning (when he never gets a call) and tells Harper that she is going to take her lover to rehab. I think we see the light at the end of one tunnel at least here. Eventually Harper will get enough clues together to start explaining things. Then his days will start slowly changing. But there are still many mysteries and many many days it would seem.
This review is for Heroes that aired 12/04/06
Look for Heroes to return January 22nd 2007
Well Jericho fans, I guess you all know now that the show is going on hiatus until early next year. As you would think, popular shows like Jericho going on such a hiatus would end the season with a cliff hanger worthy of keeping your interest until new shows arrive. So what is the cliff hanger for Jericho? Oh it's got to be more info on why it would seem China is dropping food to Jericho or the bad boy militia men back for more....or....nope...literally an email from some mystery men saying “See You Soon!” Yeah it was a bit creepy but all I did was laugh. Yeah it was that lame. Roger and a group of refugees come walking back into town.....That could have been climatic, but it was like an afterthought. Hawkins still getting messages from his mystery people is strange enough but for the rest of the season ender we could have been watching an episode of Gunsmoke....Grey's wanna be mayor antics lead me to think we were going to see a lynching. And that foolishness of Bonnie seeking out the bad boy element... give me a break. The only surprise from this one hour snooze was Dale walking out of the light to shoot Mitchell for stabbing Gracie....Didn't make up for this episode being a real ho hum snoozer. I will be real surprised if Jericho gets back half of its audience in February.
From the Suicide Bots blog.... its about Robot building, but any of us that have done electronics know these ! lol
10) I won’t need any spares.
9) The voltage difference shouldn’t cause any problems.
8) This is gonna be easy!
7) It will work fine the first time.
6) I don’t need to wear gloves.
5) Buying this new tool will SAVE me money
4) It will hold fine as it is.
3) I should do this the right way, but I can save five minutes if I…
2) I don’t need to test it before the show.
and the number one lie that robot builders tell themselves:
1) It’ll only take 15 minutes!
You know this episode could have been run as the”answer” episode. There were many more answers this week than last. Though if your like me, there were fleeting impressions of the first Star Trek episodes mix up with Heroes this week. Ok, before you glaze over, let me explain myself. The first “true” episode of Star Trek didn't get air time until well into mid season. Reason? It was too long and confusing or so thought the powers that be. Oh and Tab Hunter had the bad timing to kick off.....So Roddenbery recut the original into the 2 part “the Cage”. Well how does this apply to Heroes? Well just look at what we learn and tell me that this show should have been the original first episode? Am I right? So lets take a closer look. Heroes this week was a “prequel” or maybe a sideways episode. The premise is the Hiro jumps back to save the waitress but jumps too far, 6 months too far to be exact, right to when people's “powers” really began to manifest. We find Mohinder's father not only working but finding and contacting a perspective. Unfortunately he contacts the soon to be Syler (the name of a watch we find out) who it seems can do what Peter can do and that's to “copy” a person's ability but Syler takes it a gruesome step further and kills off the competition. Definitely a “there can be only one” mentality here. We see Nathan fly out of a car just before an accident. ( one it seems that paralyzed his wife) Matt, starting to hear voices in his head ( though, if you ask me those clips were the most confusing because the writers never made it clear if that was what was happening or was he having relationship angst, and and excuse me... the doughnut thing with him and Eden....excuse me?) Claire cutting her hand rather badly and discovering it healed shortly there after and in the middle of this we have hapless Hiro desperately trying to save the waitress only to accidentally jumping out at the critical moment and shows up back in present day at the chafe with the chilling realization that time isn't as easy to manage as once thought. Claire's father is still an enigma. It seems even at this early date, he was well aware of people with abilities and has openly recruited the “brain drainer” and works to have Eden come on as well. One more curious note...when Eden tries to use her “voice” on him he retorts, “ You have never come across someone that could say NO to you before Eden, now you have.” Does he have “abilities”? Can you see how this would have been a great first episode? Yeah maybe it tells too much. Oh one thing that was made eminently clear this week was the fact that next weeks episode is the last until some time in January....supposed to be a good one...but then, NBC has made that promise in the past...
Ok, I thought last week's Daybreak was confusing? Wow by comparison, last week was a Dick and Jane book. I started watching Daybreak right from the first shot and never, and I mean never got my feet under me again for the whole hour. You have to give the writers credit. That many twists and turns in a show with that few cast members. One thing that I am getting annoyed with real quick is Diggs' character always saying tomorrow. I will see your tomorrow, I will do it tomorrow. Yeah we get it, you mean today but its your tomorrow...sheeeeesh. This week we find that the IAD dirt bag is somehow involved with some of the lowlifes, but curiously when Harper confronts them on two different “days” they don't seem to be aware of the time loop. Curiously neither did the shadow man in the gravel pit. So this mystery is adding levels upon levels. There are more than just one shadowy organization bent on Harper's demise. I said last week that I didn't think that Daybreak could keep up the frenetic pace but it certainly did a good job this week. Though I am seeing a tenancy to rerun the same scene over and over with only slight changes. I KNOW! Its a show about a day in a time loop so things are happening over and over again...I know!!! But last week we knew something about what happened before and the slight changes that Harper did, drastically changed the outcome. His week its a different word or a different movement and oh horrors one time Harper's girlfriend's x doesn't stay over and the next he does. But you know, even if it was mostly chaotic and confusing the one hint that I wanted Harper to get to was the package in his mail and he did. He doesn't understand but at least we know what is in the mysterious package. Oh and I did like the way he blew off the downstairs neighbor with the leak... so, ok, they threw a lot at us this week, lets hope they can tie a few of these different “events” together so we can start making sense out of whats going on.
From this week's Entertainment Weekly: Zachary Quinto has been cast as the mysterious Sylar who will show his face and speak a line on the November 27th episode.
Sylar up until this point has been a mysterious shadowy person who is being tracked by the FBI for a string of very grisly murders. In the last Heroes episode we see that the murders are not as random as the FBI would have us think. Sylar is methodically eliminating anyone that has any special abilities in a manner that may be efficient but also extremely gruesome. Also there are subtle hints that Sylar himself may have the very same "abilities" that he is eliminating, leading one to suppose that he may not be a rogue but more an assassin.
FilmCritic lists The Top 10 Movie Spaceships
They also have a reduced heart rate and energy-charged muscles, just as trained athletes do, according to an article published online in Cell by Johan Auwerx and his colleagues at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France.
He and his colleagues said the same mechanism seems likely to operate in humans, based on their analysis, in a group of Finnish subjects, of the gene that is influenced by the drug.
“Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,” Dr. Auwerx (pronounced OH-wer-ix”) said in an interview.
First off is
This delightful thing is the work of rapper Pete Miser and the video was produced by UV Phactory. Really well done, and they don’t even seem to be a huge multimedia conglomerate. W00t.
Well shut my mouth for calling
Baen Books (www.baen.com), a publisher of science fiction, will provide its books to fans who are blind, paralysed, or dyslexic, or are amputees, in electronic form free of charge, effective immediately.
Baen Books is making this offer in recognition of Veterans Day, and all our disabled military veterans. Many Baen authors are veterans themselves, using a military setting as the setting of their tales. Right now convalescing vets might welcome an exciting, fast-action tale to pass the time.
Jim Baen, founder of Baen Books, who passed on June 28, 2006, decided to "provide each challenged reader with a permanent pass" to the regular e-publication of Baen’s new books. His successor, publisher Toni Weisskopf, is implementing his idea with this program.
For more information, click the story title link.
Wow what's the deal with Claire's father? Up until now he has been some kind of black ops government scary kind of guy and then this week he is begging Isaac to help him save his daughter from being killed...(yeah I know, she is supposed to be unkillable) Well seems that there is this killer with “powers” that is killing people with abilities. We have only seen this mystery killer in shadows, but his methods sure aren't. Let me back up a bit...Remember that I have said before, I don't think the “heroes” are alone. Last week we find out that there is a “firestarter”. This week an unassuming roadside waitress has gained the ability to remember anything she sees or hears. She doesn't get to enjoy it though...Shadowman takes the back of her head off. Hiro is sure he can save her by going back a day to keep her from coming to work....He says he will be back by the count of 5 but by the end of the show he hadn't show up...well an old photo is now on the bulletin board of him and the waitress at a birthday party....so....Hiro is missing, radioactive man escapes but not before he and Matt find out that they both have had some sort of procedure done on them, Mohinder had a “special” sister years before who died mysteriously – confused? Don't feel like your all alone, Heroes writers opened the taps this week after last weeks snooze and we wound up with more plot loose strings than ever. But hey, I am jazzed again with what happened this week. Yeah, Heroes got legs again.
Polaris by Jack McDevitt
hardcover 370 pp ACE
The Polaris, on a scientific observation mission, fails to return after informing control that it was preparing to return. Rescue vessels discover the Polaris adrift in space without a crew and no clues as to what happened. Sixty years later, the mystery is still unsolved. Artifacts recovered from the ship are starting to attract interest not only from antiquities dealers and collectors, but mysterious individuals that seem to have no past and no records. As investigators get closer, someone or something is bent on stopping them – at any cost. McDevitt packs a huge amount of plot and character development into a scant 370 pages. He gives us history of his universe, the science that drives it and does it in an interesting and personal manner. Plus characters that you soon learn to identify with even if they are flawed and human. Polaris hooks you quickly with a closed door mystery and then lights the rockets for a pell mell ride to the very last page. Jack McDevitt has given us a true science fiction version of the Flying Dutchman. A true page turner sf/mystery that even Asimov would have enjoyed. Bravo – very strong read recommendation.
You have got to hand it to the writers of Heroes. They have played some of their plot cards very close to their chests. That’s got to be hard. The “awesome!” or “oh wow” factor is fading fast as we become more in tune with the major players in the show. However they continue to dole out enough new twists that we still have a very “neat!” thing going on. For example…Micah, Niki’s child seems to be able to control machinery. There may have been earlier instances but the first overt manifestation is when he “calls” home to his mother. Somehow he manipulated the pay phone allowing him to make calls without entering any information…Micah’s father who put the squeeze on Niki last week demonstrates his ability to put his body out of phase with the material world by reaching through a glass window to unlock a car door to rescue a crash victim.
Niki it seems has strong recuperative powers and is back but it seems that her alter is not just “dark Niki” no, much much darker indeed. Stranger still is it seems her son is fully aware that there is “mom” and someone else. The strangest line in the show this week is when Micah calls his mom and gets “dark Niki” and he says “Put Mom on the phone.” Very weird.
Matt Parkman is back to aid the FBI in capturing a “firestarter” and winds up reading the last thoughts of a dying woman. The real card played this week was the dying woman’s husband who it seems can start fires with his mind. I know, hardly original but the big hint here is that the original characters at the start of the show are not the only one with ”powers”.
Micah’s dad is not an anomaly but a hint to even something stranger going on. Instead of being a quirk in biology we seem to have an epidemic of “super powers”. Just how many of them are there out there?
The writers have set a deterministic path that doesn’t deviate from any of the tried and true post atomic apocalypse predecessors. The argument could be made that
The plot is more driven now by character development than the theme of the show. All the main characters are becoming very well rounded, which is not necessarily a bad thing. However at what point do we say that, who had a boyfriend -before, who was married to whom - before, who had a mysterious or criminal past – before….etc. There were several instances in this week’s show where information about this or that person “before” seemed almost silly and certainly didn’t add an iota positive or negative to what is currently the situation in
The previews of next week however have Jake and his brother off getting medication for their critically ill father in another town that isn’t faring anywhere near as well as
I don’t know about you but I am more than ready to see what’s happened to the outside world.
