Michael Hanscom

Sometime between August 30th and September 1st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• A Syllabus and Book List for Novice Students of Science Fiction Literature: "There are a few things to keep in mind about this syllabus for SF 101: Introduction to Literature. It is not comprehensive. It is intended to introduce the novice student of SF literature to the major themes in the genre, as well as books and authors who are representative of different eras in SF lit (including the present day). So you'll find a mix of old and new here, as well as fan favorites tucked in among more literary authors. Back in the mists of time, I used to teach literature and American Studies at UC Berkeley, so I have some experience putting together course materials for university classes very much like one. (In fact, there are a few books on here that I used to teach.) What educators aim to do in overview courses is expose students to the broadest possible set of examples of a genre, not just the 'canon.' It is in this spirit that I chose the books on this list."
• Comparison – Apple TV vs. Roku vs. Boxee Box: "Despite its startup status, Roku still gets high marks for a product line that's on par with — if not better — than what Apple announced today. Roku's high-end HD-XR, priced at $99, has HDMI and 802.11N wireless connectivity, which is in-line with Apple TV is offering. It also has Netflix Watch Instantly and a video rental service in Amazon Video on Demand that rivals Apple's iTunes store. Roku has also promised a 1080p upgrade to its HD-XR product for personal streaming, going one better than the 720p streaming Apple TV is capable of."
• Get More Out of Your Roku Digital Video Player: Great collection of extra 'private' channels for Roku, including Twitter and YouTube channels.
• Parched English Fields Reveal Ancient Sites: "Known as crop marks, the faint outlines of unseen buried structures emerged because of the length of the dry spell, leading the national conservator to label 2010 a vintage year for archaeology. The outlines show up when crops grow at different rates over buried structures. Shallower soils tend to produce a stunted crop and are more prone to parching, bringing to light the new features. 'It's hard to remember a better year,' said Dave MacLeod, a senior investigator with English Heritage."

Sometime between August 28th and August 29th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• The Top 20 Essential Science Fiction TV Shows: "Science fiction has ruled television for over 50 years, but some shows have brightened our screens and supercharged our brains more than others. Here are the 20 science fiction shows that everybody interested in the genre should see." I don't do quite as well with this list as I do with the earlier-linked list of films, but I've still seen at least some, if not all, of almost 3/4 (13 out of 20) of the shows on this list.
• 25 Classic Science Fiction Movies That Everybody Must Watch: "Science fiction has rocked cinemas for a century, and the genre has produced many undisputed classics during that time. But which movies are essential viewing for anyone interested in the genre? We broke down the 25 must-watch science fiction films." As of right now, Primer and Moon are the only two films on this list that I haven't seen yet.
• How I’D Hack Your Weak Passwords: "Believe me, I understand the need to choose passwords that are memorable. But if you're going to do that how about using something that no one is ever going to guess AND doesn't contain any common word or phrase in it."

Sometime between August 12th and August 23rd, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Ten Things I Know About the Mosque – Roger Ebert’s Journal: "The First Amendment comes down to this: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' It does not come down to: 'The First Amendment gives me the right to repeat the N-word 11 times on the radio to an inoffensive black woman, and when you attack me for saying it, you are in violation of my First Amendment rights.'"
• Beloit College Mindset List: Class of 2014: "The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since 'digital' has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who's that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat. "
• Russia in Color, a Century Ago: "With images from southern and central Russia in the news lately due to extensive wildfires, I thought it would be interesting to look back in time with this extraordinary collection of color photographs taken between 1909 and 1912. In those years, photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944) undertook a photographic survey of the Russian Empire with the support of Tsar Nicholas II. He used a specialized camera to capture three black and white images in fairly quick succession, using red, green and blue filters, allowing them to later be recombined and projected with filtered lanterns to show near true color images. The high quality of the images, combined with the bright colors, make it difficult for viewers to believe that they are looking 100 years back in time – when these photographs were taken, neither the Russian Revolution nor World War I had yet begun."
• Did ‘Star Wars’ Become a Toy Story? Producer Gary Kurtz Looks Back: "After the release of 'Empire'…the partners could no longer find a middle ground. 'We had an outline and George changed everything in it,' Kurtz said. 'Instead of bittersweet and poignant he wanted a euphoric ending with everybody happy. The original idea was that they would recover [the kidnapped] Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base. George then decided he didn't want any of the principals killed. By that time there were really big toy sales and that was a reason.' The discussed ending of the film that Kurtz favored presented the rebel forces in tatters, Leia grappling with her new duties as queen and Luke walking off alone 'like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns,' as Kurtz put it. Kurtz said that ending would have been a more emotionally nuanced finale to an epic adventure than the forest celebration of the Ewoks that essentially ended the trilogy with a teddy bear luau."
• Be Careful With Your Safari Extensions, and Turn Off Auto-Updating: "I'm a big fan of Safari Extensions. I've written several of my own, some of which I share with the Internet public. But because I've built those extensions, I've realized how easily a malicious developer could harvest all sorts of information about you, using a method that could sneak in and evade immediate detection."

Sometime between August 3rd and August 11th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Massive Censorship of Digg Uncovered: "A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year."
• New Ball Prototype: "So basically how HTC/Android/Apple make smart phones, we make smart toys. Our first smart toy is a robotic ball that you can move by tilting your phone in the direction you want the ball to roll. We are then leveraging the connectivity and computing power of the phone to create a fully interactive experience for the user. Our first app for the ball is Sumo. I throw my ball on a table, you throws yours on the table and then we can try and sumo each others ball off the table."
• Racer: "Bad english and even worse staring at the camera, but here are some impressions from the demo setup of Racer 0.2…" This is awesome: a physical creation of an arcade racing game (apparently modeled after the 'Wipeout' series, which I loved). The player drives from an arcade racing console, which controls an RC car with a wireless camera driving on a cardboard track; the camera feeds back to the arcade console. Sweet!
• How Star Trek Artists Imagined the iPad… 23 Years Ago: "To understand the thinking that lead to the design of the Star Trek PADD, we spoke to some of the people involved in production of ST:TNG (as well as other Star Trek TV series and films), including Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. All three were involved in various aspects of production art for Star Trek properties, including graphic design, set design, prop design, visual effects, art direction, and more. We also discussed their impressions of the iPad and how eerily similar it is to their vision of 24th century technology, how science fiction often influences technology, and what they believe is the future of human-machine interaction."
• Clever overhead garage storage hack: Something to keep in mind when we finally get out of apartmentland and into our own house: "Great storage idea from user tluwelyn of survivalist community Alpha Disaster Contingencies. Dimensional lumber is bolted together to make Ts and Ls that, in turn, are bolted to the ceiling joists. Heavy-duty storage totes are then slid in and suspended by their molded-in rims. Looks like there's still plenty of room to park cars underneath."
• F.B.I. Challenges Wikipedia Over Use of Its Seal: "Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau's lawyers had misquoted the law. 'While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version' that the F.B.I. had provided."

Sometime between July 30th and July 31st, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• The Bechdel Test: Movie List [Aka Bechdel-Wallace, Mo Movie Measure]: "The Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. The test was popularized by Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For, in a 1985 strip called The Rule. The list you see to the left of this text consists of an icon with the result of the tests (explained below), the title (clicking it will take you to its details page, where you can find the reviews and comments) and finally two optional icons, also explained below. Clicking the icon before the title will take you to the movie's IMDb page."
• Does Your Favorite Sci-Fi Movie Do Right by Its Female Characters?: "Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? It's a test, popularized by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, that asks three questions of movies: 1. Are there at least two women characters in the film? 2. Who talk to each other? 3. About something other than a man? If a film fulfills all three, then it passes the Bechdel test. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. The point of the Bechdel test, among other things, is to note that even here, in the twenty-first century, the role of women in film is very often to be support for the male roles or to keep the story and audience focused on the male protagonist."
• What’s Wrong With the American University System: "Andrew Hacker and his coauthor, New York Times writer Claudia Dreifus…launch their new book, a fierce critique of modern academia called Higher Education? 'The question mark in our title,' they write, 'is the key to this book.' To their minds, little of what takes place on college campuses today can be considered either 'higher' or 'education.' They blame a system that favors research over teaching and vocational training over liberal arts. Tenure, they argue, does anything but protect intellectual freedom. And they'd like to see graduates worrying less about their careers, even if it means spending a year behind the cash register at Old Navy. "
• Monogamy Unnatural for Our Sexy Species: "Seismic cultural shifts about 10,000 years ago rendered the true story of human sexuality so subversive and threatening that for centuries, it has been silenced by religious authorities, pathologized by physicians, studiously ignored by scientists and covered up by moralizing therapists."
• 69 Alternatives to the Default Facebook Profile Picture: "If you have changed the default Facebook profile picture and uploaded your own, it's fine. But if not, then why not replace that boring picture of the guy with a wisp of hair sticking out of his head with something different and funny? One nice person called David has created a bunch of alternative Facebook profile silhouettes – from Albert Einstein to Frankenstein, Batman to Darth Vader. These are free to use in your Facebook profile. Have fun!"

Sometime between July 27th and July 30th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

• Solving the 800-Year Mystery of Pisa’s Leaning Tower: "Professor John Burland has spent the last two decades striving to save – and understand – the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After defying gravity, Italian bureaucracy and accusations of corruption, it seems he's finally cracked the case." Neat. I was able to visit the Tower during a trip to Europe in the summer of 1990. According to this article, the tower was closed in 1990, so I must have been there in one of the final months that it was open, as I have clear memories of how odd it was to climb a spiral staircase where the incline got steeper and shallower depending on which side of the Tower, and which part of the lean, I was on at any particular moment.
• The Best Magazine Articles Ever: "The following are suggestions for the best magazine articles (in English) ever. Stars denote how many times a correspondent has suggested it. Submitter comments are in italics. This is a work in progress. It is a on-going list of suggestions collectively made by readers of this post. At this point the list has not been vetted or selected by me. It is incomplete. You may notice that your favorite author or piece is missing."
• MR FAB & RIAA: RIAA Presents "USA," a "Mix-Album" in 10 Parts: "'USA' is a four-hour-long 'mix-album,' conveniently divided into 10 separate mixes. The history, geography, culture, and politics of the United States is all fair game for RIAA's musical collages, incisive observations, and cheap jokes. The United States of America is a big subject, and I don't pretend to be offering anything close to a comprehensive overview of the country – this is a musical project. That is, an experiment in mixing and mashing any audio related to the U.S. There is material here that will seem controversial to some, but I'm not using 'USA' as a soapbox. This isn't political satire, really, because that implies a point of view that the composer is trying to push, and I think of this more as a portrait. A surreal, fun-house mirror portrait perhaps, but nonetheless, I wanted to just let everyone speak for themselves."
• NJ School District Drops the Ds: "Students in one New Jersey school district may have to hit the books a little harder to get a passing grade. In Mount Olive, you won't see any more Ds on report card starting this fall, only A, B, C and F. 'I'm tired of kids coming to school and not learning and getting credit for it,' said Superintendent Larrie Reynolds in a Daily Record report."
• Science in My Fiction » I Know Why the Vampire Sparkles!: "I finally read Twilight, and after hours of internet research, I've found a solution to a major problem I had with the story. I know why the vampire sparkles! Of course, innate body glitter is just the latest thing wrong with vampires at large, so I'll start with the broader picture and work my way to the answer to that new riddle."