Courtesy ibฤซdem, we discover the 1967 spy thriller featuring a female supervillain, demonstrating that megalomania is not an exclusively male trait, titled The Million Eyes of Sumuru.
Starring Shirley Eaton (later Bond Girl), George Nader and Frankie Avalon, the plot revolves around a plot for world domination by replacing world leaders with members of her Order of Our Lady. Eaton would reprise her role in the 1969 The Girl from Rio and there was a remake titled just Sumuru in 2003 from director Darrell Roodt—this time set on an remote off-world colony removed from the rest of human civilization where a matriarchy has taken hold. Such role reversals have fun, pulpy implications and are for a large part relegated to the past until one realizes how such gender stereotypes are baked in and how even the most progressive offerings often have truck in those same, tired ideas—exhibit one being the unceremonious end to Star Trek’s original run with “Turnabout Intruder” where James T Kirk and Doctor Janice Lester switch bodies with the implicit message that putting a woman in charge leads to hysteria.
Tuesday 8 October 2019
a harry alan towers production
Monday 22 July 2019
8x8
bird of prey: Airbus reveals concept hybrid-powered aircraft design that relies on biomimicry to boost efficiency
malpratise: Johnson’s and Trump’s assault on the NHS through relaxing UK price-controls on medication
we liked the sequel, also sprach zarathustra: re-mapping syllabi from institutions of higher learning
southern exposure: the rotating solaria of Doctor Jean Saidman
groundcrew: support staff of Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force (est’d 1954) celebrated its sixtieth anniversary with precision scooter manoeuvres
dysfluency: virtual assistants have an array of human touches to build trust and rapport
re-freezer: ingenious plan to combat rising oceans by replenishing the ice-sheet artificially
engage: the trailer for Star Trek: Picard (previously)
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐, ๐, ๐ฅธ, ๐งณ, architecture, environment
Friday 29 March 2019
8x8
von neumann probes: perhaps autonomous, self-replicating interstellar explorers are destroying each other, accounting for their lack of evidence
bahnhofsuhr: the iconic Swiss train station clock designed by Hans Hilfiker
dactylography: an interesting survey of ancient latent fingerprints and the scientific rigour of forensics
incidental music: a cocktail party version of the main Star Trek theme exists in the Star Trek universe
parclo interchange: the elegant engineering of Japanese freeway junctions from above
a rabbit’s revenge: a further study of the prevalence of bunnies committing violence on humans (previously) in medieval marginalia
breakfast at mondrian’s: studio Brani & Desi translate the Dutch artist’s geometric works to floors and furnishings in a concept apartment
aerography: huge rivers coursed across the Martian surface for billions of years, via Slashdot
Friday 15 March 2019
meet cute
Via Coudal Partner’s Fresh Signals, we are greeted by the disembodied and non-gendered voice of Q, meant to be the identity overlaying the interactions of virtual assistants who’ve been so far unable to distance themselves from a female persona.
Thursday 7 February 2019
haut de gamme
We really enjoyed this retrospective review of 1960s fashion that ought to be revived from vintage maven Messy Nessy Chic. In addition to the pictured attire suitable for Star Fleet cadets from “Moon Girl” and Go-Go boot originators Andrรฉ Courrรจges (*1923 – †2016) and Dame Mary Quant, the decade’s trends included paper dresses, outlandish eyewear and experimentation with new materials, including the use of Polymerising Vinyl Chloride (PVC) for weather-proof clothing and accessories. Much more to explore at the link up top.
Thursday 22 November 2018
plato’s stepchildren
Though the act went seemingly unremarked on at the time, Star Trek’s tenth episode of its third season, which aired originally on CBS on this night in 1968, “Plato’s Stepchildren” is notable for portraying one of the first televised interracial kisses. Prospecting for a rare mineral, the crew of the Enterprise encounter an alien, humanoid colony whose culture and hierarchy is based on the philosophy of Plato, their rarefied existence made a bit less of an aesthetic sacrifice by dint of a vein of the rare mineral that imbues them with telekinetic and mind-control abilities.
Having only one victim to torment, the Platonians ostensibly to have playthings at their disposal but also to seek medical help for one of their fellow sadistic interlocutors, but seething from their arrogance and deception, Captain Kirk threatens to begrudge them their treatment—also intimidating that the Enterprise could take away the lode that leverages their powers, eventually usurping those powers by discovering how to wield it within that environment themselves. In retribution and for their entertainment, the Platonians emotional unhinge the crew, including making Mister Spock laugh and cry and compelling Kirk and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols, previously here and here) to embrace and kiss. Though perhaps most memorable, such on screen kisses (by no means commonplace) had occurred on British television and between Asian and Caucasians actors a few years beforehand. It was not without controversy and it remains unclear if reception might have been different if Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura were in control of the situation. In any event, even if Star Trek was not the first portrayal five decades ago, the franchise was able to reawaken the discussion and depiction nearly three decades later in 1995 with the Deep Space Nine episode “Rejoined,” an allegory on the taboos of homosexuality and aired one of the first scenes of a woman kissing a woman sensually, albeit they were to be understood as a symbiotic alien species whose gender identities were layered and complex.
Wednesday 21 November 2018
6x6
the voyage home: studying whale communication for its own sake and as a gateway to talk to alien life
new car smell: the odour that’s a premium for American customers does not enjoy universal appeal
the midnight parasites: a surreal 1972 animated short by Yลji Kuri set in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (previously)—an alternate source
notes on a place: visual artist Kimmo Metsaranta helps us appreciate architecture’s unnoticed corners and angles
casting out demons: US priests find themselves fielding more and more requests for exorcisms
๐: a Swedish word with a quite broad regional variation
Friday 26 October 2018
first duty assignment
Via Slashdot, we learn that CBS is in the pre-production phase of a new animated series of the Star Trek franchise from contributing writer and voice actor of Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty show (also consummate fan, membership being a bit like being able to speak Esperanto) Mike McMahan.
The half-hour episodes will take on life and culture in the Federation and working in Star Fleet with a comedic angle and is named Star Trek: Lower Decks, in reference to one of the more compelling episodes from The Next Generation (previously), the storyline following the lives of four junior officers vying for a promotion to advance their careers. This portrayal that offers a peak behind the scenes and focus that brings background members of the crew into the foreground (the term bottle episode comes from the original series, referring to shows with a non-recurring cast and mostly confined to existing interiors as “ship-in-a-bottle” shoots) has proved particularly appealing to audiences. Learn more at the links up top.
Monday 15 October 2018
Saturday 22 September 2018
minshara class
Subject to confirmation when the patch of sky occupied by the star system undergoes detailed inspection by the TESS programme later in November, exoplanet hunting astronomers believe that they have found a rocky, terrestrial world (M-Class, spelled out from the Vulcan term above, in Star Trek parlance but not a scientific designation) approximately seventeen light years away from Earth orbiting a triennial star called 40 Eridani (in the Southern constellation Eridanus—a river in Hades that is thought to correspond with the Po or the Rhône) or properly Keid (from the Arabic qayd for eggshells) that matches the canonical location of the Vulcan home world.
There’s quite some range of possibilities for the planet and surely reality will prove more fantastic than fiction but it is within reason to believe that 40 Eridani A ฮฒ (there was already one other planet found there before this suspected Super Earth) might have similar conditions to those imaged for Vulcan, arid and higher gravity. Long before Star Trek, Vulcan was the designation for the planet that astronomy needed to be subaltern of Mercury to explain its anomalous orbit, until Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity dispensed with that hypothetical world.
catagories: ๐ญ, ๐, myth and monsters, physics
Monday 17 September 2018
orbiter vehicle designation 101
On this day (Constitution Day in the United States of America to mark its ratification in 1787) in 1976 President Gerald Ford christened the Space Shuttle Enterprise, named in response to an overwhelming Trekkie (“one of the most dedicated constituencies in the country”) letter campaign and the event was attended by the creators and cast of Star Trek.
Like the NCC-1701, it was not originally designed for spaceflight with no heat-shield for atmospheric re-entry (absent the expository device of a teleporter), the test vehicle was an important stepping stone to improve next generation vehicle engineering, famously piggy-backing aloft on a Boeing 747 to bring it to attitude and speed and testing its gliding maneuvers. The Enterprise was later retrofitted and flew missions in support of Skylab.
catagories: ๐ญ, ๐, 1976, holidays and observances, ⓦ
Sunday 5 August 2018
make it so!
Though not even in the pre-production stages yet and without a clear arc of narrative—though one’s always excited to experience Star Trek as a place and get a glimpse after-hours and see how people live, Sir Patrick Stewart is said to be ready to reprise his role for a subscription-based television series, the first to address the Next Generation since the last TNG movie in 2002, on his life and career—progressed in real-time—after Enterprise. All details are scant but it’s exciting nonetheless. There is no word yet whether other cast alumni might be joining him on this continuing mission.
Monday 25 June 2018
to boldly go
The always engrossing Futility Closet podcast introduces us to the eminent figure of the Swiss physicist, explorer and aviation and submarining pioneer Auguste Antoine Piccard (*1884 - †1962) who along with his twin brother and collaborator Jean Felix were the inspirations and the namesake first for Professor Cuthbert Calculus in The Adventures of Tintin and later for Gene Roddenberry’s character, Jean-Luc Picard, implying that the captain is one of their descendants, with their actual lineage continuing in the spirit of exploration and adventure. Within the decades of the 1930s (with some years to spare), Piccard remarkably designed both a pressurised aluminium gondola that allowed him with a hot-air balloon to ascend to an unprecedented altitude of fifteen kilometres above the Earth, taking ground-breaking measurements on atmospheric conditions and newly discovered cosmic rays, and six years later, a bathyscaphe, a free-diving, self-propelled deep sea submersible, ferrying its crew down to a depth of over four-thousand metres and observing some of the alien denizens of the deep in proper context.
Thursday 25 January 2018
6x6
kommandozentrale 5001: Berlin’s newest techno music fest to be held in a Cold War-era bunker
concrete jungle: a tour of the photogenic Quarry Bay residential compound of Hong Kong
a bridge too far: Northern Ireland proposes a crossing to Scotland in response to the UK Foreign Minister’s suggest spanning the English Channel and linking England to Normandy
overclock: sounds can be passively recovered from video footage of subtle vibrations
humanity star: a private rocketry company secretly launches a temporary piece of art to inspire us to keep looking up
green blood, green women: in anticipation of his possible directorial take on the film franchise, Boing Boing shares a trailer of the original series cut in the style of Quentin Tarantino
Tuesday 10 October 2017
7x7
microcosm: an annual photography competition invites us to explore the world around us just below the threshold of the naked eye
the luwians and the trojan war: the intriguing tale behind the lost frieze that may document the collapse of the Bronze Age
point and shoot: using algorithmic processes to inform the shutter when a photo-worth opportunity presents itself, one internet and technology giant is offering an automatic camera for home use—relatedly
gastaloops: one hundred day push to create gorgeous, encircling animations—via the Everlasting Blรถrt
high rate of staff turn-over: activities offered at the White House adult day care facility
extinction cos-play: crocheted costumes for the common pigeon to highlight the importance of biodiversity and fighting to protect endangered species—via Nag on the Lake
trek ‘splaining: a visual physics lesson on the problem-fraught workings of as seen on TV teleportation
Thursday 5 October 2017
sphagnum, p.i.
From the science desk at Gizmodo we learn that algae are not monopolising the bio-fuel revolution and there’s another contender in the lowly but amazing moss. The superficial achievement of engineering a fragrant plant so a patch of one’s garden might smell of patchouli oil is just the beginning. If developed responsibly, moss could become a universal, self-sustaining medium (peat, turf was until modern times after all the only fuel resource we knew how to effectively collect and use) that could be genetically tinkered with on demand and deliver flavoured, edible, nutritious compounds to be moulded and presented as a mealtime skeuomorph, effectively the replicator from Star Trek.
catagories: ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐งฌ, environment, food and drink
Thursday 28 September 2017
darmok and jalad at tenagra
Sourced without a doubt from The Greatest Generation, io9 (named for a theoretical input-output device that allows users to peer into the future at the price of their sanity) presents a collection of some of the strangest plotlines from Star Trek: TNG for the series’ thirtieth anniversary, which debuted on this day in 1987.
catagories: ๐บ, ๐, 1987, holidays and observances
Wednesday 12 July 2017
butterfly in the sky
Tuesday 20 June 2017
7x7
alpha quadrant: astronomers spy more terrestrial exoplanets in our corner of the Milky Way
glymphatic node: new anatomical system discovered charged with cleansing the brain and spinal cord
twitterpated: applying artificial intelligence to group and identify bird song
sub-space: a helpful, accessible explanation of that Chinese satellite network’s quantum entanglement experiment, disabusing our expectations of instantaneous communication
kalkรผl: images from a vintage East Germany children’s maths text book—site tip from Everlasting Blรถrt
lacquer: Australian researchers are making advances with “solar paint” that pulls hydrogen from the atmosphere like a photosynthesising plant
tame: in depth genetics study suggest cats self-domesticated—or maybe it’s their humans that are house-broken
Monday 19 June 2017
apocrypha
Wil Wheaton, having engaged with a commenter expounding on the historical context regarding the origins of Christianity and the received tradition unmediated by political expediency, improved vastly on the slogan entreating God to save one from his followers, by remarking that “Canon Jesus is better than Fandom Jesus.” I much prefer the way Wheaton turned out to the way the series imagined he would, as well.