Friday, July 14, 2017

One of the Greatest Science Fiction Magazines Is Now Available For Free Online

The Verge reports One of the greatest science fiction magazines is now available for free online “If you like classic science fiction, one of the genre’s best magazines can now be found online for free. Archive.org is now home to a collection of Galaxy Science Fiction, which published some of the genre’s best works, such as an early version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man.”

Here it is: Galaxy Magazine at archive.org.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Top 10 Movie Crimes of All Time

Another CineFix Top 10 list, this time, the Top 10 Movie Crimes of All Time. I think I’ve seen all but two movies mentioned in this. I love crime movies.

Ok, here’s every film mentioned. I’ve seen all but those emphasized and one of those I’m gonna watch tonight.

  • 1931 M
  • 1941 The Maltese Falcon
  • 1944 Double Indemnity
  • 1946 The Postman Always Rings Twice White Heat
  • 1949 The Third Man
  • 1949 White Heat
  • 1950 Rashomon
  • 1950 The Asphalt Jungle
  • 1951 Strangers on a Train
  • 1954 Dial M for Murder
  • 1955 Rififi
  • 1956 The Killing
  • 1957 12 Angry Men
  • 1958 Vertigo
  • 1960 Breathless
  • 1960 Ocean’s 11
  • 1964 Topkapi
  • 1967 Bonnie and Clyde
  • 1967 Cool Hand Luke
  • 1967 Le Samourai
  • 1968 The Thomas Crown Affair
  • 1969 The Italian Job
  • 1970 Le Cercle Rouge
  • 1973 The Sting
  • 1974 Chinatown
  • 1974 Murder on the Orient Express
  • 1975 Dog Day Afternoon
  • 1976 Taxi Driver
  • 1981 Thief
  • 1983 Scarface
  • 1987 My Best Friends Birthday
  • 1987 Raising Arizona
  • 1988 Die Hard
  • 1990 Miller’s Crossing
  • 1991 Cape Fear
  • 1991 Point Break
  • 1991 Silence of the Lambs
  • 1992 Reservoir Dog
  • 1993 True Romance
  • 1994 Léon The Professional
  • 1994 Natural Born Killers
  • 1995 Heat
  • 1995 Se7en
  • 1995 The Usual Suspects
  • 1996 Fargo
  • 1996 From Dusk Til Dawn
  • 1998 Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
  • 1998 Ronin
  • 1999 Boondock Saints
  • 1999 Office Space
  • 2000 Chopper
  • 2000 Memento
  • 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou?
  • 2000 Sexy Beast
  • 2000 Snatch
  • 2001 Heist
  • 2001 Ichi the Killer
  • 2001 Ocean’s Eleven
  • 2001 The Score
  • 2002 25th Hour
  • 2002 Catch Me If You Can
  • 2003 Oldboy
  • 2004 Collateral
  • 2004 With Blood on My Hands: Pusher II
  • 2005 Brick
  • 2006 Inside Man
  • 2006 Lucky Number Sleven
  • 2006 The Departed
  • 2007 Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
  • 2007 Mr. Brooks
  • 2007 No Country For Old Men
  • 2007 Zodiac
  • 2008 Bronson
  • 2008 Taken
  • 2008 The Brothers Bloom
  • 2009 A Prophet
  • 2010 I Saw the Devil
  • 2010 Inception
  • 2011 Drive
  • 2011 We Need to Talk About Kevin
  • 2013 Blue Ruin
  • 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street
  • 2014 Gone Girl
  • 2016 Hell or High Water

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

A Complete Guide to the Religions of Game of Thrones

As I've only watched the HBO series and haven't read the books, I found this Complete Guide to the Religions of Game of Thrones to be very informative.

We Have a New Delaware Sized Iceberg

Project MIDAS reports that that Delaware-sized Antartica iceberg they've been watching finally broke free, Larsen C calves trillion ton iceberg. > A one trillion tonne iceberg – one of the biggest ever recorded - has calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The calving occurred sometime between Monday 10th July and Wednesday 12th July 2017, when a 5,800 square km section of Larsen C finally broke away. The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes. Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. > The iceberg weighs more than a trillion tonnes (1,000,000,000,000 metric tonnes), but it was already floating before it calved away so has no immediate impact on sea level. The calving of this iceberg leaves the Larsen C Ice Shelf reduced in area by more than 12%, and the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula changed forever. > Although the remaining ice shelf will continue naturally to regrow, Swansea researchers have previously shown that the new configuration is potentially less stable than it was prior to the rift. There is a risk that Larsen C may eventually follow the example of its neighbour, Larsen B, which disintegrated in 2002 following a similar rift-induced calving event in 1995. > The Larsen C Ice Shelf, which has a thickness of between 200 and 600 metres, floats on the ocean at the edge of The Antarctic Peninsula, holding back the flow of glaciers that feed into it.

Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Kansas, Sam Brownback, and the Trickle-Down Implosion

Justin Miller wrote about Kansas, Sam Brownback, and the Trickle-Down Implosion. "The Kansas governor’s attempt to create supply-side nirvana in Middle America not only failed to grow the economy—it created a crippling crisis of government that led to a statewide rejection of his politics." Martin Longman says Democrats Need to Educate People About Kansas. > There’s a lot of value in what Brownback did to Kansas because it gives us a chance to compare what the Republicans say will happen for education, employment, economic growth, and budgeting health if they get to implement their policies and what will actually happen. > In short, things got so bad that the Republican-dominated legislature overrode Brownback’s veto and passed a budget that, among other things, rolled back his tax cuts and provided more funding for schools. > The Democrats should not ignore these results. They should study them and they should figure out a way to highlight them relentlessly so that as many people as possible internalize the lessons. > In the end, it was Republican lawmakers who had seen enough and voted to override their governor’s veto. But they had to learn the hard way, and Republicans from other states and in Congress show no signs that they’re going to alter their ideology as a result of seeing it fail so spectacularly when given a real chance to succeed.

The ‘i Before e, Except After c’ Rule Is a Giant Lie

Wonkblog explains The ‘i before e, except after c’ rule is a giant lie "'This addendum to the rule completely useless,’ Cunningham writes. ‘You still have roughly three to one odds that the ‘i’ goes first.’"

Sunday, July 02, 2017

Seat 14C: Online Time Travel Sci-Fi Anthology

Ars Technica writes Read some seriously strange time travel stories from sci-fi’s modern masters: > A flight from Tokyo to San Francisco jumps though time and lands 20 years in the future. That's the short version of a writing prompt taken up by 22 of today's most exciting science fiction writers, each of whom contributed stories about the flight's temporally dislocated passengers to an anthology called Seat 14C. Now you can read the book for free online, and I guarantee you'll be engrossed. > You'll find original stories by Hugh Howey, Nancy Kress, Chen Qiufan, Bruce Sterling, Charles Yu, Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Madeline Ashby, Gregory Benford, Daniel Wilson, Eileen Gunn, and more. Each author interpreted the prompt in his or her own way, resulting in a fascinating selection of very different kinds of stories. Twenty-two incredible artists illustrated the stories, and we have a selection of their work in the gallery above. Some of these tales are about weird new technologies, some are about social changes, and others are about the tragedy of being marooned in an unknown future. I haven't read the stories yet but I don't love the site design. I had some trouble with scrolling on the iPad though it seems to work fine on my mac.