It looks like award winning author Michael Moorcock will be writing a Doctor Who novel to be on the shelves sometime next Xmas. And there is a new Kick-Ass trailer, that movie also to be released next year. Thanks to SFX for the heads up on those, and don’t forget to Vote for the best SFX Awards.
There are a few Film Fests previously mentioned here that are continuing this week, but the new festival I feel compelled to make sure folks are aware of is the Sheffield Doc/Fest in the UK. And yes, I do know that talking about a documentary film festival seems strange on a Sci-Fi blog, but there is a good reason to include it, and other Fests like it: pieces of it are helping us build and imagine the future, which is what SF is all about. The fact that the slogan of this particular DocFest is The Truth Is Out There just makes it a bit more obvious than most.
One such piece is The Execution of Gary Glitter?, a story set in a parallel time line where the death penalty has been reintroduced in the UK following overwhelming public pressure. This Docudrama uses a pop music figure and a journey across the Einstein-Rosen Bridge to explore some very serious questions.
Another such film is Arena: Eno, in which you get to know aspects of musical genius Brian Eno, and learn about his own part in getting together with influential minds in the fields of science, art, systems analysis, cybernetics, and more, and how he is helping to shape the future through his intelligence and influence.
If you noticed the link between musical skills and the growth of the future, it wasn’t a fluke. Other documentaries that evolve through both of those factors include How The Beatles Rocked The Kremlin and Soundtrack for a Revolution.
Other films are Dealing With Time (Le temps presse), where the 10% increase in our average daily speed per project over the last decade is examined in detail, RiP! A Remix Manifesto which explores the legal battlefield where existing copyright and freedom of speech go head to head, and Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam which looks at the serious clash between cultures that can occur when someone writes a fictional story of What If that the rest of their peer group wishes were true so much that they start living that life.
Some serious food for thought at this event.
Appearing in next weeks Big Bang Theory is Wil Wheaton. I haven’t actually watched that show, but based on this trailer I guess I am going to check it out.
The Film Fest entries grew too large to include with this post, so they got their own posting on Tuesday. I think I just may make that their regular posting day.
On the Convention front, Palmdale, CA has Ani-Magic, an Anime Con this weekend. In Salt Lake City Anime Banzai will also be running games, cosplay, and lots of Anime guests.
Rockville, MD (a suburb of Washington, DC) is holding CapClave 2009, a ReaderCon with Author GOH Harry Turtledove. Hosted by the Washington Science Fiction Association October 16th through the 18th, they will also be presenting the WSFA Small Press Award at CapClave, and are releasing Reincarnations by Harry Turtledove, available only through the WSFA.
ValleyCon 35 is also this weekend in Fargo, ND, with Author GOH George R.R. Martin and Media GOH Peter Jurasik. ValleyCon is a general SciFi/Fantasy/Comics/Gaming convention.
For movies, Where the Wild Things Are looks to be the most interesting new choice for this weekend. The Road, originally scheduled to be released this week, is now slated for November 25th.
I have done a number of Halloween posts already this year, but as one of the major religious holidays I figured I should do another entry. I loved the Sci-Fi Wired sequence of 14 Great Cthulhu Toys that make devouring souls fun, 19 Amazing Star Wars Pumpkins, and 20 Great Pet Costumes, all of which put my appreciation of the site back on top where it belongs. But they are displaying Other Peoples Work; don’t you want to build your own? Two of the best sites I know for that are the Instructables Halloween Costume Collection and the Make Halloween Site. The later will help you with your haunted house and special effects technology more than your costume, but it all means your are building a unique holiday event. Make is also running a Micro-Controller Halloween Contest, so make sure to document and enter your remote-controlled exploding pumpkin as soon as possible. D-Vice came up with the concept and basic technology to build the Gaping Hole Costume for a Real Life application of the Death Becomes Her special effect, but I have yet to see a believable working version of it. For the little ones and their parents I can recommend Homemade Halloween Costumes from the Funtimes Guide web site. That should be enough for now; we still have a week or three to the holiday itself, so there is still time to get creative.
We’re glad you made it; welcome to the future! Right now a lot of the backbone that feeds the routers that feed the cable modems and other WAN/LAN interfaces runs at 10Gig. That isn’t because the switching technology can’t support higher throughput, but rather the ability to encode data for a higher bitrate and throughput has been lacking… until now. Over at Cornell a team has developed a Time Lens system, a chipset that takes that 10Gig baseline data rate and uses an optical split-and-recombine setup to turn it into a 270Gig output to the same optical distribution system. True Broadband may be on the horizon at last, and the same technology could help speed up the end-users computers as well. And here is another fine production that makes you think from TeacherTube.