Category: Uncategorized

A handy reference giude to who hates whom and why in Central, Eastern, Western, and Southern Europe as compiled by a Russian alternative newspaper.

Comic author Warren Ellis has a blog and everyone is talking about it (and his cool domain name).

Alternative 3 was a documentary produced in 1977 by Anglia Television in the UK. Originally reporting on the “brain drain” of UK scientists, the documentary crew eventually discovered a secret joint US/USSR space program that had actually landed men on Mars in 1962 in advance of “alternative 3” – a plan to evacuate the Elite from Earth and colonize Mars before Earth succumbs to global warming and eventual environmental collapse (which was going to happen much quicker than folks thought). Some “ordinary folk” would be kidnapped, pacified via mind control, and used as slave labor on the new Martian colonies while the rest of us proles are left behind to wallow in our own filth.

Oh yeah, along the way evidence is discovered of extraterrestrial life.

The whole program was a sham of course – sort of a modern version of of Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds broadcast but with current (for 1977) production values, “official sounding” presenters, and plenty of “documentation”. The documentary was supposed to air on April 1st 1977, but due to scheduling issues it didn’t air until June. A follow-up book tie-in was published and as they say… hilarity ensued.

Of course, quite a few folks took it seriously and still do. Fortean Times and Wikipedia both have a good rundown of the whole Alternative 3 mythology.

Pamela Bone’s Circle Of Light looks like a cool movie (Delia Derbyshire is credited with sound) but I can’t watch the full length stream of it because RealOne Player generates a “There is no software update available from RealOne to support this content: CLV1”

Then why is it in Real format to begin with? Grrr… RealOne (or whatever your calling yourself now) go stream in Hell.

The Guardian speculates on the dogmatic connections between science-fiction classics, such as Asimov’s Foundation and Herbert’s Dune and Osama Bin Laden’s particular brand of fundamentalism.

John Robb reports that my Congresswoman, Loretta Sanchez, received $16.5K in Hollywood payola. Garden Grove isn’t exactly the entertainment suburb of the world, but Disneyland is one town over.

John Robb posts…

I have a recurring dream. I am in college. A person that I have seen in a couple of my classes, comes up to me and asks me if I want the “everything” drive. I ask, what is the “everything” drive? He whispers that it has every book, song, newspaper, magazine, and movie that has ever been published. Everything is categorized and first quality. It even includes a clone of Google and some new search techniques that are even more powerful. Incredulous, I ask what the catch is. He says, nothing, just knowledge. I then ask how much it will cost. He says nothing, just the time it takes to transfer it and a promise to give it to two other people.

So with all the “Evil Overlord” lists out there and the “Evil Overlord” writing guide from a couple of days back, it was inevitable that someone would put together an Evil Overlord Random Plot Generator. Reload the page for a new plot!

It’s a hypersonic weapon *and* a propaganda device. It’ll turn up in cars and nu-metal concerts too I’ll bet.

Once aimed at the enemy, a focused beam of the familiar noise, played backwards, will be painful enough to make enemy soldiers run for their lives, according to its developers. They call it the “sonic bullet”.

There are 50 soundtracks to choose from, and they are played at 140 decibels. That is akin to standing beneath a passenger jet as it takes off. Hardly surprising, then, that the weapon causes an intense headache in its victim.
…
But the “hypersonic sound system” beams sound along two ultrasonic signals to produce noise only when they hit the target. The weapon’s user doesn’t hear a thing.
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A hand-held version of the weapon – a thin tube about a yard long, dubbed a “directed stick radiator” – might in theory be used against hijackers in a plane cockpit, though the bouncing beams could deafen passengers as well.

The firm which developed the system, American Technology Corporation, has won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market it. It also hopes to offer the device for use in drinks machines. Someone in front of one would hear the sound of a can opening with an enticing fizz.

The mission of SOS is to promote the vision of a society based upon the principles of Ingsoc, first articulated by George Orwell in his prophetic novel, 1984.

They’ve got flyers already, but what I really want is a t-shirt.