“Paris-based skateboard company Mekanism invited Space Invader—the French graffiti artist known for his mosaics—once again to have his way with their decks. Expanding on the limited edition turquoise and red mosaic print that Invader came up with on their first collaboration (back in ’05), there’s only one per edition and they’re made with actual tiles.”
“Astronomers have discovered a new class of planets that take less than a day to whiz round their parent stars. Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope revealed the existence of the planets, which orbit closer to their stars than any previously known. Dr Kailash Sahu and colleagues report finding the planets in a faint, crowded star field in a region of the Milky Way known as the galactic bulge.
The team has published its findings in the scientific journal Nature. It uncovered the existence of 16 planets in the category of close orbiters, taking between 0.4 and 3.2 days to go around their respective stars. Many of the planets are the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar System. Two of the 16 have orbits of less than a day, creating a new category of “ultra-short” orbit exoplanets.”
I’m always down on the Sci Fi channel for nottaking chances, well this time I’m wrong! It seems they are doing something quite cool and joining up with the Sundance channel to have a contest for science fiction films:
SCI FI, Sundance Launch Exposure
“SCI FI Channel announced that it will join forces with Sundance Channel to launch Exposure, an eight-week short-film competition to find the best science fiction, horror or fantasy films to post on SCIFI.COM and SundanceChannel.com, with a grand prize of the chance to pitch a project to SCI FI Channel’s Pictures Group. Both sites are now accepting submissions from up-and-coming filmmakers of two-to-eight-minute movies in the genre.
The short films will be judged by a committee of SCI FI Channel and Sundance Channel experts, who will review the submissions and post the best ones online each week. Viewers will cast their votes on either Web site to determine a weekly winner, ultimately determining the eight finalists. The eight shorts will be featured in an on-air special, to be broadcast on SCI FI Channel (airdate to be announced) preceding the online voting to determine the grand prize winner. That winner will be awarded a trip to New York to pitch his or her project.”
Below: “The Wookiees, although primitive compared to us, are surprisingly capable editors. They’re pretty strong, and pick up wiki techniques pretty quickly.”
It seems an interview has come out which claims that Kubrick thought that Cruise and Kidman ruined ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, and I have to say that I agree! Cruise gave a a great performance in ‘Magnolia’ and Kidman was fantastic in ‘the Hours’, but they two together just didn’t work on screen: Cruise and Kidman ruined Eyes Wide Shut – Kubrick interview
“Director Stanley Kubrick thought his last movie Eyes Wide Shut was a “piece of s**t” that was ruined by interference from its stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, according to actor R Lee Ermey. Ermey starred in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and remained in contact with the legendary film-maker up until his death in 1999.
When the pair spoke shortly after Kubrick had completed work on Eyes Wide Shut, Ermey recalls the legendary director expressing his disappointment with the movie. He says: “Stanley called me about two weeks before he died, as a matter of fact. We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut. He told me it was a piece of s**t and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch.”
…however I’d have to note that Sydney Pollack gave a great performance:
“The wars aren’t over for “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. Lucas said Wednesday he’s making an animated TV series of “Clone Wars” that could air next year, although he hasn’t sold the show to a network yet. The series is set during the time when the Republic is fighting a civil war against separatists led by Count Dooku.
The mythic period hasn’t been dealt with too much in the popular “Star Wars” movies, so “it’s a fun place to go,” Lucas said. “It basically has all the main characters” such as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lucas said, but the stars who played them in the movies won’t voice them for the TV show.”
“The discovery could not have come at a better time. ABC had dropped to fourth in the ratings after NBC, CBS and Fox, and had not posted a profit for seven years. There was just one stumbling block. Braun’s bosses were unconvinced. While he, swept along on a tidal wave of enthusiasm, commissioned JJ Abrams, the award-winning scriptwriter of the hit series Alias, to write an initial episode and lavished £7 million on what was to become the most expensive television pilot in history, his bosses at Walt Disney, which owns ABC, looked on in horror.
“A crazy project that’s never going to work” was how Michael Eisner, the chairman and chief executive of Disney, described it. “This is a waste of time,” said Bob Iger, his deputy. They could not have been more wrong.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 4, 2006 in Star Trek
I always rather liked Enterprise, and I wouldn’t mind seeing another season of the show, or at least a special or two. I think Enterprise suffered from “Voyager fatigue” it seemed like they just wanted to run the franchise into the ground. I think once people see the series solo that it may gain some fans:
“The folks over at Trek United have never given up on the idea of a season five for Star Trek: Enterprise and now that the show has been picked up for syndication on The SCI FI Channel, the organizers of the Save Enterprise campaign are focussing their attention there for a possible fifth season. In a surprise announcement, one of the leaders of the campaign who goes by the screen name AussieTrek released this call to all members of the Trek United website and to anyone interested in helping with the 5th Season Campaign:
This week, the fans of Star Trek are encouraged to participate in the preparation of the postcard campaign to Sci Fi Channel. The organizers are hoping to persuade the Sci Fi Channel (the new home of syndicated Star Trek: Enterprise reruns), to negotiate with CBS Corporation for the continued production of new episodes of Enterprise. We are asking everyone to choose their favorite ‘slogans’ for use on the postcards to kick off the mailing phase of the resurgent campaign.”
For nearly 40 years Neil Armstrong has been accused of fluffing his lines during his first steps on the Moon. On tapes of the Moon landings, he appears to drop the “a” from the famous quote: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” But new analysis of the tapes has proved Mr Armstrong right after all. Computer programmer Peter Shann Ford used audio analysis software to show that the missing “a” was blotted out by transmission static.
…but reading about this reminds me that it’s been a long time since we’ve been on the moon. As a child I would have expected to see a Mars landing by 2006.
“When I learned that it is possible to read every X-Men comic ever made*, I had a bright idea. I was going to read each comic starting from the very beginning. It was going to be epic, it was going to be awesome, it was going to be the nerdiest thing I could possibly do. And then I read Uncanny X-Men #1. And that sh*t was bad.”
A good bit is about the artwork below:
“3) Overt sexism. Don’t give me the “it was a different era” bullcrap. The treatment of Jean was absolutely ridiculous! Take a look at this panel, shortly after she was introduced to the rest of the team.”
