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Science Friday will be covering the impact of Sequestration on science and research tomorrow, but they also have a very fun guest: MC Frontalot. He’s not the only Nerdcore artist, but he is my favorite, and he just came out with a new CD, his 5th. Nerdcore is hip-hop for nerds, about computers, video games, science, and being geeky, so he should fit right in with the Sci-Friday crowd. You can listen to it on your local NPR radio station, download the podcast, or stream it live, check this page for the links to listen, or get the app. Or for the full geek effect, log in to Sci-Friday in Second Life and enjoy it in VR. Don’t forget to visit the MC Frontalot web site for the latest updates and tunes.

Coming up on Thursday the 28th at the Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at Kansas University, Cory Doctorow will be doing a lecture entitled The Coming War on General Purpose Computing: Every single political issue will end up rehashing the stupid Internet copyright fight. I wish I was anywhere near there so I could attend and hear one of the most innovative and insightful thinkers of the last dozen years give this presentation. If you are nearby, don’t miss it; seating is free, but limited, so you want to get there early. If someone records it and puts in on TED or YouTube, I will post it here, which will at least be better than missing it entirely.

Doctorow Poster

In the meantime, here is a very related presentation he gave back in 2011 that should give you an idea of the subject matter. The Copyright and Intellectual Property questions are very complex, because the solutions to protect one group’s rights would often wipe out every other group’s rights, and what we need is a system that will protect everyone’s rights at once. There is a solution to be found, but not without a lot of work to find common ground and implement a best practices list that actually works for all of us. I appreciate the fact that Doctorow looks at the problem from lots of angles and is not shy about expressing his opinions about all of the components involved with the process.

This stuff is important; it deserves your attention and understanding. Yeah, it may take a bit of time and effort to comprehend but the rewards of getting it right will be amazing for the entire human race. Don’t let the future be determined without taking a moment to find out about the arguments and making your voice heard in favor of the aspects you consider worth fighting for.

There is a great set of three articles over at Anime News Network about copyright’s as they apply to fandom, written by a lawyer who specializes in Intellectual Property law. While they specifically address Anime fans, the concepts discussed are equally valid for any genre fans. They are well written and easy for the non-lawyer to understand, and I highly recommend checking them out. The first article is What Is A Copyright And What Does It Do?, the second is Copyrights And Fandom, the third is Defending Yourself. There is a fourth article yet to come, discussing what is in the courts and pending legislation, and how it may effect your ability to watch or buy shows or merchandise. As with all discussions about the law online, there is a legal disclaimer at the end of each article. Ironic, that.

In movies the Man from Shaolin is coming out, a martial arts story. I should point out this is the 2012 movie starring Li Zhang, not the 2010 collection of 1980s films starring Jet Li that had the same name. Also, the Japanese action/adventure fantasy Red Tears appears to have been renamed Monster Killer for its US release. No American genre releases this week that I could find, and nothing really in live action TV.

We do considerably better in Anime, with Battle Girls: Time Paradox releasing the complete 13 episode collection. Hideyoshi is going to fail her history exam without some divine intervention, so she stops by a shrine to make a prayer and an offering. She gets transported in mid prayer to what appears to be a version of feudal Japan populated entirely by women, and immediately is on a quest to gather together the mystical armor required to help a warlord conquer the land. The Qwaser of Stigmata: Collection 2 brings the next dozen episodes in the tale of Qwaser and Human pairs in their battle for the High Circuit. And it looks like being paired with a super-powered being just might be contagious, as one of the women goes through a startling transformation.

The prize for longest title this week goes to Heaven’s Lost Property the Movie: The Angeloid of Clockwork, in which yet another not quite human girl comes to make Tomoki’s life stranger than he expected. Finally, Nisemonogatari is the sequel series to Bakemonogatari, continuing the supernatural adventures of apparitions associated with women the protagonist knows. However, at roughly $120 for 11 episodes of 25 minutes each, this one is way overpriced, and that is after the drop from the original price of $150. So I will just be watching it on Crunchyroll until a better deal comes along. If you are doing the same thing, start with Bakemonogatari, or you will never be able to figure out what is going on in the newer series.

The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is coming up in November, and they are making a ton of wonderful specials for it, on top of the actual new episodes in both audio and video format. One of those specials is An Adventure in Space and Time, about how Doctor Who came to exist. David Bradley gets to play actor William Hartnell for this one, while Jessica Raine is the show’s producer Verity Lambert. Check out the exclusive Radio Times photo of Dave as Hartnell, and enjoy this video snippet of the recreation of the pivotal scene from the very first Daleks episode.