Damian Peach took a series of images of Jupiter between March 18th to 22nd this year, and put them together to create this video he calls The Entire Face of Jupiter. He posted it earlier this week, so I thought I would share it here.
Terrestrial Human
Today would have been Carl Sagan’s 82nd birthday, a man who was one of my primary inspirations (along with Albert Einstein, Robert A Heinlein, and Nikola Tesla). He brought an appreciation of astronomy and the cosmos to the masses, he co-founded the Planetary Society, and he wrote some amazing books and articles. Want to put the recent political news on Earth in perspective? Watch his famous presentation Pale Blue Dot:
For a short time, from November 18th to December 17th, Daisuki will be Streaming Mobile Suit Gundam the Origin for free, in honor of the release of the 4th part of this series in Japan. Thanks to Otaku USA for the heads up on that one.
Streaming online Sci-fi, a bunch of it free, is what Watch Sci-Fi Dot Com is all about. They are the folks who put together the SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival each year, and the collection of amazing short films produced specifically for that event makes up a portion of the free-to-watch content. I certainly don’t mind paying them for the few non-free presentations I watch, since most of the ones I select can not be viewed from North America any other way. Check them out, and let me know what you think.
The film worth checking out this Friday is Arrival, told from the viewpoint of the linguist who is recruited by the military to assist in translating the aliens communications. I will be in the theater for this one! As far as I know this may be the first ever Ted Chiang story to be turned into a movie, in this case the short story: “Story of Your Life”. Ted has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, four Locus awards, and a boatload of other top honors in the Sci-Fi universe. The story had a very small scope, if what I have seen of the trailer is any indication Hollywood may have grabbed that ball and run with it in directions the author never intended, but I am still looking forward to seeing what his first outing on the silver screen may have brought about.
And remember, next Monday the 14th is the Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks presentation in theaters across the US! The lost episode when Hartnel regenerated into Troughton; sadly only the audio survived, so they animated the video.
TV brings us Daredevil: The Complete First Season, a rather brutal addition to the Marvel TV collection that has a good story to tell. Marvel is doing better than most at creating continuity between their Movie and TV storytelling, with the Netflix branch of the franchise focusing on the superheroes who called Hell’s Kitchen home. Movies have a couple of animations for us, Phantom Boy being a French production about a kid who can astral project and the policeman he works with to bring down a violent criminal being the first. The second is the rather more adult Sausage Party, which is funny as hell but NOT appropriate to share with your children.
In Anime, Sky Wizards Academy: The Complete Series is about an inept combat team and the outcast who was assigned to train them to fight against the armored insects that now control the Earth. 07-ghost tells of the destruction of a nation after a Thousand Years War, and the survivor who is about to turn everything upside down. Omamori Himari: Complete Collection has a cat girl guardian, a bunch of attacking demons, and the last remaining member of a demon killing family that wishes he was anywhere but here. Strike the Blood is all about Vampires who bounce from body to body, and the killer girls sent to snuff them who seem to spend a lot more time protecting them.
In The Heroic Legend of Arslan Season One: Part Two, trust me when I say Arslan is not having a good time, but you might enjoy the story noticeably more than he does. Overlord: Complete Collection the ultimate “trapped in a game” anime, and it certainly seems to be a lot of fun. Finally, Shomin Sample: I Was Abducted by an Elite All-Girls School as a Sample Commoner win’s this weeks award for most off the wall title, but it does look like an interesting animation.