Speculative Nonfiction

Yes, of course they can, because after all we create theories, and we're computers - but this is less trivial, because this is the fir...

There are a few comments online about Her that are fully on the mark about the content of the movie, yet miss the main goals I think Jonze ...

That probability is increasing. Scholz's Star passed well within the outer edge of the Oort Cloud a mere 70,000 years ago . It's i...

Similar to alkaline lakes on Earth; well within the pH range of extremophiles. Paper here . Above: geysers at the south pole of Encelad...

One of the explanations for the apparent rarity of life in the universe is the frightening gamma ray burst - perhaps life is astonishingly r...

Paper here . Hinges on the trapping of methane as clathrates, similar to subglacial lakes (i.e. Vostok) on Earth.

"Martyrs" is the first horror movie I've seen that I would put within hailing distance of Hellraiser. Here's a review ; I...

You know, prolific 90s death metal producer at Morrisound Studios? If you don't know, then you probably won't care about this aweso...

Overcoming Bias covers two papers on SETI; importantly, the papers distinguish between the search for artifacts (like Dyson spheres) and the...

Normally I care more about the ideas than how they're rendered, but this is outstanding enough that it made even my blunted retinas happ...

This focuses on ways in which GAIs could interact with the material world, rather than GAI itself. In either domain I make no guarantee of ...

I just re-watched Terminator 2, which is aging pretty well, not least because it used CGI as opposed to live action latex-and-juice effects ...

More here on Joko Widodo, president-elect of Indonesia . Given his shirt, I wonder if he is "chuffed". Indeed, perhaps his f...

Video games generally have a much better ROI than movies ( actual figures here ), to a point where you can't help but wonder why the ent...

One is a picture of Navajo Mountain, Arizona (presumably from Lake Powell; credit mikereyfman.com ) and the other is one of my favorite cove...

"Taiwanese student in heavy water over homemade fusion reactor ". If technology continues to progress, one day we'll look bac...

In keeping with making bizarre connections between pop culture and academic topics, I illuminate a creeping dark conspiracy that so far as I...

False color, real topography rendering of what Venus "frost" might look like (NASA) Besides being the coolest title for a pape...

There are many reviews out there, and few were kind . The show was sold out for quite a while. Relative to the '99 Metallica symphony ...