Sci Fi Jungle

Looking Forward to Stargate Universe next Friday

Stargate Universe (Syfy; Oct. 2)

Years ago, the Ancients sought to seed the galaxy with stargates, and now a multinational crew settles into one of the Ancients' ships, the Destiny, unsure of how to control it or where it's whisking them.

Cast:

• Robert Carlyle
• Ming-Na
• Lou Diamond Phillips
• Alaina Huffman

 Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, and Robert Picardo may have guest spots.  I wonder how that is going to happen?  Do you get good weight loss effects traveling through space?  Probably, if there are no Swiss Cake rolls on board.

Dollhouse Season 2 Episode 1: Vows

Joss Whedon is further investigating the idea of the gray scale of moral ambiguity in this season of Dollhouse.  This series is interesting to me, because it is a great morality tale of how easy it is for us to forget our moral reference as we cheer on the butt kicking Echo who can be imprinted with any skill or knowledge with a special "treatment" in Topher's chair.

FBI agent Ballard, who so tirelessly fought to expose the Dollhouse is now... working for them.   In fact in this episode he is the customer, and is having Echo marry a arms dealer in order to get evidence he was not able to gather during his FBI career.  I wonder what kind of wedding invitations went out for this one?

Considering the Dollhouse is basically a souped up whore house, I still have a huge problem with the premise.  The writers chip away at these objections by making the handlers (pimps) likable characters in their own right and with the sop that the dolls all signed upfront contracts knowing what they were going to be doing.

In the first episode of season 2 (Vows) we see Echo retaining more of her myriad imprinted personalities, and seeming to remember more details of her total sum existence.  There is also a very interesting personality struggle going on with Dr. Saunders, who has discovered that she is in fact a doll who the Dollhouse imprinted with medical knowledge after she had been attacked and scarred by Alpha.  She has to go through "finding herself" as a made up personality and has a love hate relationship brewing with Topher, who hand created her personality to be unlike the other dolls in order to be an effective doctor.

The Falcon and the Dragon - SpaceX Plans Next Launch

SpaceX, the commercial space company that launched the Falcon 1 rocket last year, is planning to get two birds with one stone with their next launch by using their "Dragon" cargo capsule as the payload for the Falcon 9 rocket launch.  SpaceX reports that they plan their next launch sometime after November, and have actually applied for a November 29th launch date, but company officials report that that more time will be needed to assemble the rocket. 

SpaceX has announced the payload for the first Falcon 9 launch later this year will be a stripped-down version of the company's own Dragon capsule, a vehicle being developed to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

via http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0909/24falcon/#

The first the Falcon 9 rocket will be assembled at Cape Canaveral in November with a launch planned between one to three months after the assembly.  

I can't imagine them being able to assemble an entire rocket in 27 days, I mean its not like just screwing on some Mopar parts! 

Science Knowledge Quiz - Saturday Edition

To test your knowledge of scientific concepts and recent scientific findings and events, we invite you to take this 12-question science knowledge quiz. Then see how you did in comparison with the 1,005 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions. You'll also be able to compare your Science IQ with the average scores of men and women; with college graduates as well as those who didn't attend college; with people who are your age as well as with younger and older Americans.

Take the  pewresearch.org Science Quiz

I got all 12 questions right, scoring better than 90% of quiz takers. Take the quiz and see how you do.

Fringe Season 2 Episode 2 Review

I am loving Fringe season 2.  They are obviously giving Peter more of a lead role on the team, which is good, especially with Olivia going through the post Universe hopping hangover effect.

I am still not enjoying Charlie being taken over by an operative from "other Earth" but I will give it a chance.  The writers are obviously trying to make good ue of the horror-yuck inducing qualities of their weekly icky monster.  The ground dwelling scorpion guy was GROSS. 

And they never really showed if the Sheriff of the town got eaten or got saved, did they?  Ick!  Grosser than colonetix. 

They are keeping me viewing Fringe, along with Dollhouse, Eureka, and the soon to be premiering Stargate Universe.  This gives me lots of nice Sci Fi TV to keep me going during all the job searches.   And if there is anything I need right now, it is a little bit of escapist entertainment.

Heroes Tomorrow Night at 8PM on NBC

I am excited for a new season of Heroes.  Greg Grunberg is on Twitter, by the way - greggrunberg.  He's so cute, his character and that of Masi Oka are my favorites on the show.  Hiro and Parkman are the ones who still seem to have mostly pure motives to do the right thing.  Attention writers - I will become pissed off if you make Parkman act on his non noble impulses. 

Monday night's new episode is going to be a 2 hour season premier.  I am going to be out of town for a job interview so I bet I will be sitting in a hotel room watching.  That's after I burn fat slogging through 3 airports.

Transparent aluminium is 'new state of matter'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.

via www.physorg.com

Ding dang, y'all - transparent aluminum. First levitating mice now this.

Fringe Season 2 Episode 1 Review

I was excited to watch the new episode of Fringe that aired Thursday night.  Man, they just busted right into the story, with the car flying out from nowhere and crashing.  I was wracking my brain trying to remember how the last episode ended last season to figure out if I missed anything.  They are smart though, there is nothing to worry about in terms of missing anything, as they did a really good job of laying out the new season as it's own entity.  The new FBI agent learning about the old cases is kind of a metaphor for new viewers, I think.

Spoiler Alert!!!  If you haven't seen the episode yet watch it online here:

A New Day In Old Town Season 2: Ep 1 Watch Online Free

Then come back and read the rest of my post. 

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I am so pissed that they are killing off Charlie!  Ok, I see that the new chick is going to replace his role as the "straight cop" in the group.   Not cool though, I liked his character.

After all those car crashes, I bet there is someone who is shopping for Ferrari parts.  I thought the room where the guy from the alternate universe could type messages in the mirror was really cool and clever.  Very Alice through the looking glass.

Giant Star Blows a Glowing Space Bubble | Wired Science | Wired.com

Called the Bubble Nebula, this eerie, translucent sphere is created by fierce winds from a superhot star 40 times the size of our sun. Moving at nearly 4.5 million miles per hour, stellar winds whip the cloud of gas around the star into a near-perfect bubble, which stands out from the rest of the more stationary gas in this emission nebula.

via www.wired.com

Check out this amazing photo of the "Bubble Nebula" taken by Britain's South Common Observatory.

In dark gaming times, Nintendo DS shines - Citizen Gamer- msnbc.com

This has been a week, and really more like an entire month, that has delivered me (and a great many others) unto gaming heaven. That is, this week saw the launch of both “Scribblenauts” and “Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story” — two staggeringly awesome games that have kept me with a DS clutched in my hands for far too many hours.

via www.msnbc.msn.com

Interesting review of two new DS games. My kids love their DSs and I will check out Scribblenauts and Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for sure.