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
I was just looking through YouTube when I lucked onto a video from Beyond Science and narrated by Michael Chen. Why was I so lucky? Well first and foremost it's primary focus is that of Universes. Yep, multiple. One of my Faves, the concept that every actions spins off a new universe.
Though one must ponder the implications of this concept. I feel much less disconcerted with the idea of pocket universes
They make a good case for instances like De-Ja-Vu (the weird feeling that you have been or done something weirdly similar to present events. Or even stranger, you are sure that you did or said or read something that is subtly different. The video shows some incredibly strange examples.
Check the video below or go to the YouTube site HERE
I subscribe to Vsauce on Youtube because their science is always provocative and fun.
Here is one that recently was entered asking what seems to be a fairly straightforward question but from there, things get decidedly weird......Is the Earth flat?
Well it is no mystery now that I like Sci-Fi films and have a soft place (wait for it) in my heart (ha!) for the short venue.
So I came across this one while perusing through my article listings. The premise is a dystopian future (not necessarily Earth) in the slums that have sprung up around the base of a space elevator. The black market currency is..... well, you will find out.
For those of you that are familiar with Doug Turnbull's stories on the podcast, you may be interested to note that he also hosts a video review on Youtube, where he reviews many titles in the science fiction realm.
I plan on carrying these excellent video reviews on a bi-weekly schedule as I don't want to use up this resource too quickly.
Please leave a comment if you have any other suggestions.
Here then is Mr. Turnbull's review of the "Juvenile" early works of Robert A. Heinlein.
Here is a very interesting illusion caused by a repeating monochromatic pattern. It is described by the video makers as being mildly hallucinogenic but that is really stretching is a lot. It is however interesting. Fyi the effects only last a matter of seconds to at most a minute. Have fun.
Corning put together this video called "A Day Made Of Glass," which seems to be getting a great deal of attention on YouTube. The idea of the video is that the near future will be full of touchscreens, smart windows and appliances like stoves which are all made with glass! The neat thing is that the video shows everything from the house, to the car, to shopping and work-place all working together. IO9 blog of course has a somewhat different view of the milieu. Check out the IO9 blog comments here
Found on Youtube via Boing Boing is this wonderful piece play by a computer disk drive organ. The composition was assembled by Funtothehead and here is what he had to say about the device and production. Test run of my (d)iskette (O)rgan doing Toccata & Fugue. People have made floppy drives sing before, but this is my personal take on it. Features two 3 1/2" drives and two 5 1/4" drives connected to a PIC18f14k50 microcontroller. As it can produce only four simultaneous notes, and each drive has a different range and tonal characteristics, best results are obtained by arranging compositions by hand....
Here it is! It certainly is entertaining if not strictly speaking "classical" lol. Have fun.
Like I have said before, there aren't many videos or stories that I have reservations on posting. Well I just came across a music video on YouTube by Rachel Bloom. It has reasonable production value and the music is well performed and recorded. Plus it has a strong science fiction element....so to speak. Mz Bloom's song professes a rather strong attraction to one of the giants of science fiction, Ray Bradbury. In the video you will find the musical version of "lets get to know each other better"
It's quite funny, but I really can not in good conscience post anything more than the youtube link here.
The beat is infectious and the production funny. Enjoy.
Now here is a cute video that doesn't ascribe to anything more than it truly is...a piece of whimsy what ifs... So if you were a kid and you had a pet and it just happened to be an AT AT...what would your best summer afternoon be like...and what of the AT AT? Here is a genius short film that if not answering the question...gives you the idea. Patrick Boivin, has the inside track on what makes a summer afternoon special.....
Here is a pretty strange piece of YouTube animation, I found on Pink Tentacle directed by Ryō Hirano, called Future Man. The society in the film seems like a cross between ants and chimps more than man and the rest of the fauna is equally strange - making the short story strange. Check it out!
Quite often extrapolating for a science fiction can take many forms. I know I have said many time that science fiction is the extrapolation of technology, however, often it's a lot more complicated than that. Statistics can often tell you a great deal about how things are working. Statistical analysis of the growth of anything, be it people or computational power and predicting those trends toward the future is a skill un to itself and can often inspire an author.
Here is a short presentation I found on Utube that looks at trends in population and technology. The future it paints is both fascinating and frightening. Check it out and see if it doesn't scream science fiction story to you.
This is just one of many copies of a cool, but not too unusual, meteor fireball filmed in Edmonton. What is annoying is the amount of extreme scientific ignorance demonstrated by YouTube comments.
In most of the comment sections, the non-exclamatory comments ("Cool!" "Wow!", etc.) break down into three categories.
3. Denial "Fake. Those are Space Shuttles returning to Earth. This happens all the time." Countless comments like this one and the guy who claims to see hands and wires in the video. Apparently Shuttles land all the time in Edmonton.
2. Religious and conspiracy theories. "its not a meteor. god just took a huge **** on earth. j/k. i wonder if this has anything to do with the year 2012. if u dont know wats so special about 2012 look it up on google." I'll spare you the religious ones; they're worse.
and the number 1 response - Blame NASA. Many were the mild - "It's the lost NASA Tool bag." others accused NASA of not doing their job. Apparently it's NASA's job to track the countless pebbles in space.
For the record the CBC interviewd University of Calgary planetary scientist Alan Hildebrand who said "You are talking about something, say, the size of a chair or a desk that entered the atmosphere." not the twenty ton to dinosaur killer sized asteroids many seemed to think.
So if you want to feel sad about the state of science education in the world (YouTube is popular everywhere) just search for Meteor over Edmonton at YouTube and read the comments on a random video. In most cases "wow!" will be the most intelligent, and only accurate, comment.
Courtney was showing me some funny clips on Youtube when she came across this and I thought I would break a rib. Of course those of you that have been listening long enough know that if there is anything scatological.....
Hey anime fans! (no Carole they are NOT cartoons!) FUNmation Entertainment just posted some really good news:
FUNimation just launched free episodes from four series on YouTube. Every week, FUNimation will be adding fresh new episodes for you to enjoy. Be sure to visit http://www.youtube.com/funimation to see what's new every week. Also, be sure to subscribe to find out when we add new episodes.
Right now This is what they have listed for programs and episodes:
LAST WEEK:
Blue Gender - Episodes 1-4
Kiddy Grade - Episodes 1-4
Peach Girl - Episodes 1-4
Slayers - Episodes 1-4
THIS WEEK:
Blue Gender - Episodes 5-8
Kiddy Grade - Episodes 5-8
Peach Girl - Episodes 5-8
Slayers - Episodes 5-8
If your into Anime this is sweet stuff. It's a mixed bag, but I found a couple that I felt were worth watching. Also if your getting most of yours from Cartoon Network / Adult Swim (hey, I will take it anyway I can get it, I also watch Mondays on Sci-fi! lol) you will find that these are fULL episodes, just cut into bite sized chunks. No editing or censoring which as you know, both networks are famous for. I know, animated nipples are a no no...sheeeeeesh. gmafb
