Archive for July, 2009
Geek Media Round-Up: July 6, 2009
Film
- io9 has posted a gallery of 59 Gorgeous Photos From Harry Potter.
- The Los Angeles Times has an interview with Bonnie Wright, Ginny Weasley of the Harry Potter series. She was just 9 years old when she was cast for the role… and if she live to be 90 people will still be calling her Ginny.
- Roger Ebert defends his harsh review of Transformers 2, saying that “Those who think “Transformers” is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved.”
- Slate rounds up a list of What stuntmen think are the best stunt films of all time.
Literature
- Free Fiction: Listen to “Japanese Motorcycle Clob” by Michael Stone by Dunesteef.
- Free Fiction: Read On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War-Machines of the Merfolk” by Peter M. Ball at Strange Horizons.
Television
- SCI FI president Dave Howe answers question about the new Syfy brand name.
This Day in Geek History: July 6
1885
French scientist Louis Pasteur and his colleagues inject the first of fourteen daily doses of rabbit spinal cord suspensions containing progressively inactivated rabies virus into nine year old Joseph Meister, who had been severely bitten by a rabid dog two days prior. The immunization will be successful. This marks the beginning of the modern era of immunization.
1905
The fingerprints of John Walker become the first to be exchanged by police officials in Europe and America. Law enforcement units in London and St. Louis, Missouri make the exchange.
1920
A radio compass is first used for aircraft navigation. In a test of the radio compass as an aid to navigation, an F5L leaves Hampton Roads and flies directly to the battleship Ohio (BB 12), ninety-four miles at sea in a position unknown to the pilot. Without landing, the plane makes the return trip to Hampton Roads, Virginia, this time navigating by signals from Norfolk, Virginia.
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Geek Quote of the Day
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
- - Steve Jobs in his 2005 Stanford Commencement address.
Book Review: The Strain
Book: The Strain
ISBN-13: 978-0061558238
Author: Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
Series: Book One of The Strain Trilogy
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary Horror / Thriller
Release: June 2, 2009
Length: 416 pages (Hardcover)
Verdict
After years of enjoying director Guillermo del Toro’s films, it came as no surprise to me when I cracked open his first literary endeavor, The Strain, to discover that it unfolded just like a big budget movie.
Rarely have I read such a cinematic story. Every scene, every setting, every action sequence reads like a summer blockbuster, from the Langoliers-like suspense of the setup, down to the Invasion of the Body Snatchers-esque cliffhanger. That is both the book’s greatest strength, as well as its most notable shortcoming, depending on whether or not the reader is a cinemaphile.
On one hand, The Strain is a horror film between two covers, which makes for great reading on weekends when Hollywood’s offerings fall flat. On the other hand, as a fan of epic fantasy series, when I pick up a novel, no matter the genre, I hope for a deeper experience than I would get at the theater.
The deciding factor is that The Strain puts the horror back into vampire. There are no glittery hardbodies or angst-ridden souls in this book. Del Toro’s vampires bear more resemblance to George Romero’s zombies than the vampires of any recent media franchise, and that’s sure to come as a breath of fresh air for male audiences.
Synopsis
Official:JFK International Airport, New York City: Seated corpses faced in row after row. No evident trauma. No nosebleeds. No signs of poisoning. They were seated as any normal passengers would be, chairs in full and upright position, still waiting for the fasten seatbelt sign to be turned off at the airport gate…
What took the lives of an airplane full of people?
Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, Head of the Center for Disease Control’s New York team, is racing to find out, but little does Eph know that the nightmare is only just beginning.
Abraham Setrakian is an elderly Armenian professor who understands the darkness that is descending. Many years ago, in the hellish barracks of the Treblinka extermination camp, he faced a horror more terrifying than death itself.
Before the next sundown Eph, Setrakian, and a motley collection of heroes must undertake the ultimate fight for survival. Should they fail, New York will be lost. And the rest of the world will follow…
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This Day in Geek History: July 5
1687
Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, the three volume explanation of Newton’s laws of motion. Read Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica online.
1865
The world’s first maximum speed law is enacted in England. The speed limit of 2mph in town and 4mph in the country is imposed under the Locomotives and Highways Act.
1879
A near-complete skeleton of a Mastodon is discovered near Newburgh, New York, by a farmer’s son while digging a ditch. The area had been a bog until drained and cultivated fifty years earlier. From a five-foot deep trench over the next three days, neighbors unearthed about two hundred petrified bones, including ribs, spine, legs, feet, and a skull with its teeth and lower jaw in tact. The find will be reported in The New York Times on July 8th and 9th.
1908
In Paris, a French officer displays a new, powderless electric gun.
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Geek Quote of the Day
You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.
