NASA celebrated 5 years worth of data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory by putting together this collection of some of the best imagery they have gathered. They also opened the Solarium at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Visitor Center in Greenbelt, MD, where you can get up close and personal with the project’s rich harvest of information. Did you know the sun was on twitter?
Terrestrial Human
Laissez les bons temps roulez! This year I decided to become a Mardi Gras float and join a parade which took place in a Steampunk Variation of New Orleans somewhere around the 1860s. The parade was held by the Crewe of Scribes, the theme was favorite Victorian authors, and I had a tough time deciding between Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. But Verne was fully in the era, while Wells only caught a bit of the tale end of it (not misspelling, just a really bad pun), so that is what I went with. I always enjoyed his underwater stories the best, so when I assembled my float I used coral alpha textures on a transparent prim, some seaweed flexi prims, and one of the best little Steampunk submarines I have ever seen. When it was finished, I put the float on as my avatar and joined the parade; what a lot of fun that was! Thanks to the Mayor of Mieville Perryn Peterson, and all the other good folks of the Steamlands, for a truly fun holiday. In fact, I have to get ready for the Mardi Gras Ball now; I will be back soon.
We finally get a look at a decent length trailer for the upcoming Netflix/Marvel project Daredevil. It will begin streaming on April 10th, giving Marvel a whole new flavor of outlet for their stories.
Archive Dot Org has a great assortment of X-1 episodes which you can listen to online, or download for your own collection. The show was one of the better presentations of science fiction radio plays, built from stories that appeared in Galaxy magazine, written by some of the best authors of the era. This program has been in the public domain for quite a while now, which kind of surprises me, as I would have thought they would want to hold on to it. Here are a few episodes to get you started; there are quite a few more available.
In Movies Birdman deserved its Oscar nominations, a sort-of superhero movie that spoke about the art and the actor, rather than the character. Then there is The Theory of Everything, where one of my real life heroes, Steven Hawking, was the character at the core of the story; and yes, this one too took home its share of Academy Award nominations. It won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild, and another dozen awards, so I look forward to seeing what it wins in the next round. We also get the latest Studio Ghibli feature film, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. It is based on one of the oldest and best known folktales from Japan, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which would have fit right in with anything from the Brothers Grimm.
In TV we have Doctor Who: Last Christmas, where Nick Frost gets to be a companion while playing Saint Nick… or something very much like him. For a completely different flavor of sci-fantasy there is Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season, continuing George R.R. Martin’s epic mad battle to rule the world. Fortunately, not our world.
Anime gives us Hozuki’s Coolheadedness: Complete Collection, a story about the chief bureaucrat in Hell, and how he deals with the day to day running of the place. Space Dandy: Season 1 also comes out this week, quite the twisted reality!
From their 7th album, 35xxxv, which went on sale on 11Feb15, this is new from One OK Rock, the song Cry Out. This is also the album release for their amazing song Mighty Long Fall (previously out as their 9th single). I am thinking the selection of tracks for the US 7th release was meant to be a push for more American airplay and to seriously build their North American fan base. That fan base is already large enough that they give you a choice of Japanese or English when you go to their home page. This was my favorite band last year, and no one has come along to take that title from them yet this year.