As the year closes, we lose Larry Roberts, 81, to a heart attack.
As a manager of the US Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA, Roberts oversaw the development of Arpanet, the major forerunner to the World Wide Web. On October 29, 1969, the first message (“Login,” but only “lo” got through) went from UCLA to Stanford. Roberts later went on to work in the burgeoning computer industry.
Another year comes to its conclusion! Back in ’84, Isaac Asimov made some predictions for our coming year. Like all good futurists and SF writers, he got a few things right and others…. Well…. He foresaw in broad strokes where the computer/information age was heading, but he was a tad optimistic with regards to our future presence in space.
Not that we’re not involved in space.
Dr. Brian May’s just-released tribute to New Horizons
If you think you might have to travel a bit to get to wherever you’re going for New Year’s Eve, consider: just as 2019 gets underway, NASA’s New Horizons will pass the Kuiper Belt object, 2014 MU69 aka Ultima Thule.
Click for more, including some top science stories, a blue day in NYC, a strange defense for a fallen geek star, and some recent cosplay video.
DC’s latest attempt at making a big splash with their cinematic universe has arrived.
The first Jodie Whittaker season of Doctor Who comes to a conclusion, though we’ll get the usual Holiday Episode soon, and another season in… 2020!
“It Takes You Away” poses a fascinating, atmospheric mystery with a bizarre and, IMO, not very satisfying conclusion. “The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos” brings several elements of the season together.
Here’s the place to discuss both….
Luke Cage. Iron Fist and Daredevil have been cancelled, despite the huge success of the most recent DD season. Jessica Jones and The Punisher likely have one more go-round, if only because they’re already in production.
However, Daredevil (and the others?) “will live on in future projects for Marvel,” according to a spokesperson.
Disney’s own streaming service will be continuing Marvel-Television, with its Scarlet Witch and Vision series, and a Loki series, both announced back in September.
Will Disney’s move mean greater interplay between Marvel’s movie and TV characters?
What do we want to see? What will we see?
We really need to return to reviews of this season. We have the standard historical with SF episode this week, but it features a couple of new elements. The Doctor encounters difficulties because she’s now a woman, and King James wanders unaccompanied across the country, acting like Matthew Hopkins. Alan Cumming gives a great performance, but James’s presence, as depicted in this episode, makes little sense, his historical interest in witches (and alleged homosexuality) notwithstanding.
Nicholas Roeg has passed away at the age of 90.
The influential British filmmaker first made his name as a cinematographer, working on such classics as Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and Fahrenheit 451. He got his directorial career off to a rocking start with the controversial Performance (1970) starring Mick Jagger. Roeg was no stranger to genre; his films include The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and The Witches (1990).1 Many people remember him for the movie we’re reviewing as a memorial, Don’t Look Now (1973). The cryptic cult classic combines Hitchcockian style and psychological horror with twists supernatural (or science-fictional, I suppose, depending on your interpretation of the film).
Rest in Peace.
It’s questionable whether the characters in this film can.
Our reviewer has fallen behind, so we’re going to post a discussion of the last two episodes of Doctor Who, Series 11.
“Demons of the Punjab” gives us a fairly typical Doctor Who “aliens in a past era” episode, except for two notable twists. The first is that we’re not in England‘s past, even if the time and place hold some significance to British history. The second is one of the things that makes this episode interesting.
“Kerblam!” looks at the implications of our latest retail models and future AI developments. It has an interesting premise, and Whittaker remains a standout Doc, but something about this one left me cold.
Anyone else have opinions?
Multi-talented author and screenwriter William Goldman has died at the age of 87, of colon cancer and pneumonia. He had many successes, but he will be best remembered by Bureau-crats and other nerds as the author of The Princess Bride.