Wednesday, December 11, 2013

11 December 2013

 Birthdays
Hailee Steinfeld b. 1996 (Ender’s Game)
Ashley Hinshaw b. 1988 (Chronicle)
Max Martini b. 1969 (Contact, Pacific Rim)
Gary Dourdan b. 1966 (Alien: Resurrection, Impostor, Lois & Clark)
Ben Browder b. 1962 (Farscape, Stargate: SG-1, Doctor Who)
Teri Garr b. 1947 (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Young Frankenstein, Star Trek)
Dick Tufeld b. 1926 died 22 January 2012 (Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)
Vampira b. 1922 Died 19 January 2008 (Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Magic Sword, The Vampira Show)
Marie Windsor b. 1919 died 10 December 2000 (Batman[TV], The Day Mars Invaded Earth, Cat-Women of the Moon)
David McMahon b. 1910 died 27 January 1972 (The Deadly Mantis, It Conquered the World, The Creature Walks Among Us, The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing from Another World, The Monster That Challenged the World)
Paul Wegener b. 1874 died 13 September 1948 (The Golem)

A dirty secret of the blog exposed! For the most part, I ignore voice work. My exceptions are The Venture Brothers and Futurama and the work I consider iconic. Dick Tufeld's work as the voice of the robot on Lost In Space is iconic in almost everybody's book, even those of us who did not love the show, so he gets the Picture Slot, sitting next to Bob May, the guy who was actually in the costume.

There are other options for the Picture Slot on future December 11 posts, but David McMahon isn't one of them. He showed up in a huge number of films and TV shows, but has more uncredited roles on his imdb.com page than I've seen for anyone. I saw his face and did not have a "oh, that guy" moment. I respect him for his perseverance in the business, but he never caught that one role that made him recognizable. The closest thing would be his role as the Conductor on the TV show The Virginian.

Many happy returns to the living on the list, and to the dead, thanks for the memories.

Movies released
Star Trek: Insurrection released, 1998


Prediction: We may safely suppose that the ocean ships of a hundred years hence will be driven by energy of some kind transmitted from the shores on either side. It is absolutely unquestionable that no marine engine in the least resembling what we know to-day can meet the requirements of the new age.

The ships of a hundred years hence will not lie in the water. They will tower above the surface, merely skimming it with their keels, and the only engines they will carry will be those which receive and utilise the energy transmitted to them from the power-houses ashore perhaps worked by the force of the very tides of the conquered ocean itself.

Predictor: T. Baron Russell in A Hundred Years Hence, published 1905

Reality: Oooooh, hovercraft once again! So much fun and strike one!

Also, Russell thinks ships will run on transmitted power, which is not something we've made work wirelessly. I give him some credit for going almost completely sci-fi with this, but this is one of the problems with non-technical people guessing about future technology.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Thursdays belong to Isaac Asimov. Let's see if he can do any better than Russell did today, which is not that hard to do.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

4 comments:

  1. What's the difference between transmitted power and the ever-elusive ray gun?

    Nothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just like Asimov went with beams of energy from space. In one of the pavilions at the 1964 Worlds' Fair. They showed a machine for instant road building, including lasers that could chop down trees.

      Lasers that can slice through timber could also slice through flesh, right? That's just a death ray, prettied up to prove it's "practical".

      Delete
  2. Oh, Teri Garr, I love you: "What knockers!"
    "Oh, sank you, Doktor."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Want to go for a roll in ze hay? It's fun! Roll, roll, roll in ze hay..."

      Delete

Traveler! Have you news... FROM THE FUTURE?