This week's top five nerdy things
Straight in at
number one is the Big Bang Theory, a
very funny US sitcom about four nerdy guys in L.A. who
work in the science faculty of the local university.
Balancing out their geeky-ness is their normal,
down-to-earth, feminine and very attractive neighbour
in the apartment block. I’ve watched the first three
series now and I can only remember one dud episode.
Brilliant writing. A must see!
Shooting up to
number 2, we have the daftest and
funniest sci-fi gift I’ve seen in a very long time. For
all discerning model owners, ThinkGeek have brought out
a model of the Space Monolith from
2001: A space odyssey; it’s available to buy in the UK
from firebox.com. Faithfully rendered, the
monolith has zero points of articulation, may be
full of stars and could raise the evolution of any
small creatures happening to wander across your desk
and bump into it. ThinkGeek even point out on the
back that you can collect every one of the set; i.e.
two more absolutely identical space monoliths…
In at number 3 is a book recommended by the Brainpickings website. Here’s what they said: “What if “Luke, I am your father” wasn’t the beginning and end of pop culture’s tensest father-son relationship?
Hovering around at number
four, making people nearby chuckle, is Snorg
T-shirts. They have an amazing
number of funny ’t’ shirts, many with very nerdy
points of view. Here’s eight choice designs. I think
the first one is just right for Sheldon from ‘The
Big Bang Theory’.
Finally, at number
five, is something I’ve thought about buying
for years. Keep in mind that I’m not a cosplay
fan; I can’t really get excited about dressing up as
characters from stories. I guess it’s just a personal
thing but there is one exception: the absolutely
authentic star wars stormtrooper outfits available from
originalstormtroopers.com, the
company run by the man who made the
original stormtrooper outfits for George Lucas’s
film.
They aren’t cheap but they
are from the same moulds as the original outfits for
the movie. Andrew Ainsworth had to win a court case
against Lucas industries to continue selling them.
Fortunately, the court ruled that the outfits were
products rather than works of art (as far as I know)
and so weren’t covered by Lucas’s commercial rights.
I’m not sure I’d even wear it for a party though.
There’s a great line in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ when
Penny is going through Leonard’s wardrobe, trying to
find something fun for him to wear to a fancy dress
party. She finds an outfit and asks him what it is.
‘It’s a Battlestar Galactica pilot’s suit’, he tells
her. She says ‘wonderful, why not wear that as your
fancy dress?’ He look at her in confusion and replies,
‘but it’s not fancy dress, it’s a Battlestar Galactica
pilot’s suit’.
I know how he feels.
The Meaning of Life has been answered!
Winning at Snakes &
Ladders
Okay, this isn't
literally the Answer. I certainly wouldn't
want to encourage anyone to play the game, unless the
snakes and ladders are relatively short and you don't
get one of those horrendous snakes that takes you from
square 99 all the way back to square 3; that's just too
cruel. It is though, strangely enough, fundamentally,
exactly what we need to do. That's why the
game was invented in the first place. To fully
understand this odd answer and what led to it, do
please read the whole explanation.
As an encouragement, if you do, you'll find a fun
string of logic involving quantum physicists,
psychologists, a rocket engineer, hypnotherapists
and one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth
century. It’s a trail that leads to an answer that
the Jains, the Gnostics, the Orphics, the Buddhists,
shamen and even, it seems, according to texts lost
for a millennia, one that Jesus Christ agreed with.
It's been great fun writing 'The Meaning of Life'. I've
learned a huge amount. It's also been very pleasing to
explore an area traditionally left to religions or
spiritualists, working out how our world works and what
we're doing here using facts that aren't necessarily
from priests or holy books but were instead gathered by
physicists, psychologists, doctors and engineers.
If anyone has any feedback, especially about elements
I've missed out or mistakes I've made, do please let me
know. I'm sure I've made errors but the overall message
is, I think, of value.
Enjoy your day!
Sci-fi short stories are go...
Just a quick note to say that the
graphic novel has had to take a back seat (again)
as I'm now working on some humorous
science-fiction short stories in a similar vein to
'18%
happier'. That story has had a lot of good
feedback (more on that soon) and so I feel I
should go with the flow and write some more of
that ilk. Hopefully, I'll come up with a dozen or
so and put them together in a collection.
Until then, here's the emblem/logo I came up with for the collection: Read More...
Bertrand Russell's ten principles for creating and communicating new ideas
Here's another
gem from Brainpickings weekly. I've
mentioned Bertrand Russell recently,
with regard to the excellent graphic novel
Logicomix
that
centres around Russell and other mathematicians' search
for logical truth. Here he is again with a profound
list of recommendations for anyone wanting to
investigate the world and explain what they've found;
it's from the December 16, 1951 issue of
The
New York Times Magazine, at the end of the
article
“The best answer to fanaticism:
Liberalism.”. You can find the
brainpickings article here. Personally, I
found the line 'Do not fear to
be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now
accepted was once eccentric' particularly
appealing. 
Ten sci-fi and fantasy novels that aren't really about sci-fi and fantasy.
Science fiction and fantasy novels; aren't they lame? Well, not necessarily, although the genre is often seen as the domain of nerds and fans of mediocre literature. In some cases that view's probably understandable. When a novel is a piece of escapism, when the story is purely designed to give the reader fun and thrills with little in the way of thoughtful insight, such literature can be seen as little more than pulp fiction. The problems for sci-fi don't end there. Many readers are reluctant to read any story that has lots of technical references and descriptions and are worried such content will make the novel incomprehensible, confusing or just plain boring. As a result, large sections of the reading public avoid sci-fi and fantasy like the plague with the more high-brow dismissing it as shallow and the rest dismissing it as nerdy tech-fetishistic junk or social-inadequacy-fuelled escapism.
But there are science fiction and fantasy books out there that defy such categorisations. They do this because their purpose is not escapism or a glorification of technology but a piercing and insightful analysis of the human condition and our place in the world. This, essentially is what all great literature is about. The stories that linger in our thoughts, that we treasure, are the ones that give us a moment in time where we look at ourselves with clear eyes; sometime with a heavy heart, sometimes with a spark of joy.
Here's a list of ten science fiction and fantasy novels that, I think, do just that. They are all still clearly science fiction and fantasy novels, containing technology and mythical characters respectively, but those genre elements are vehicles, tools that are used by the author to talk about subjects all great literature is concerned with; love, loss, identity, morality, fear and hope.
Off we go... Read More...