8 March 2015

 Birthdays
Yui Aikawa b. 1989 (Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead)
James Van Der Beek b. 1977 (The Storm)
Alexandra Davies b. 1977 (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, BeastMaster)
Freddie Prinze Jr. 1976 (Witches of East End, Scooby-Doo, Wing Commander)
Danny Corkill b. 1974 (D.A.R.Y.L., Dune)
Boris Kodjoe b. 1973 (Resident Evil, Surrogates, Starship Trooper 3: Marauder)
Matt Nable b. 1972 (Arrow, Riddick)
Al Vicente b. 1971 (American Horror Story, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Under the Dome, The Walking Dead, American Zombie, Jericho)
Jed Rees b. 1970 (Galaxy Quest, Lake Placid, Crow: Stairway to Heaven [TV], The X-Files)
Robert Stanton b. 1963 (The Stepford Wives [2004])
Leon b. 1962 (Bats)
Camryn Manheim b. 1961 (Extant, Slipstream, The 10th Kingdom, What Planet Are You From?)
Barbara Eve Harris b. 1959 (Forever, The Amazing Spider-Man, Eureka, 10.5 Apocalypse, TekWar: TekJustice, The Hidden Room)
Aidan Quinn b. 1959 (Jonah Hex, Practical Magic, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein [1994], The Handmaid’s Tale)
Peter and David Paul b. 1957 (The Barbarians, Knight Rider)
John Kapelos b. 1956 (No Ordinary Family, Lost Girl, Category 7: The End of the World, Phil the Alien, Dead Like Me, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Forever Knight, The Shadow, The Relic, The Craft, The X-Files, Angel, Timecop, Lois & Clark, Quantum Leap, Weird Science)
Kathy Shower b. 1953 (Night Realm, Cyber-C.H.I.C., Frankenstein General Hospital, Knight Rider)
Mickey Dolenz b. 1945 (Halloween [2007], The Tick)
Susan Clark b. 1940 (The Astronaut, Colossus: The Forbin Project)
Lewis Teague b. 1938 (director, Justice League of America, Time Trax, Cat’s Eye, Cujo, Alligator)
George Innes b. 1938 (Stardust, Morons from Outer Space, Voyagers!, Hammer House of Horror, The Medusa Touch, Scars of Dracula)
Mickey Morton b. 1927 died 8 August 1993 (The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Land of the Lost, Gemini Man, Far Out Space Nuts, I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek)
Booth Colman b. 1923 died 15 December 2014 (Star Trek: Voyager, Galactica 1980, Project U.F.O., Time Travelers, Planet of the Apes [TV], The Invaders, I Dream of Jeannie, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Outer Limits, Moonfleet, Them!)
Alan Hale Jr. b. 1921 died 2 January 1990 (ALF, The Giant Spider Invasion, Land of the Giants, Batman, My Favorite Martian, The Crawling Hand)
Priscilla Lawson b. 1914 died 27 August 1958 (Flash Gordon)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. Previously, the Picture Slot was given to Mickey Morton, a very tall actors who usually played menacing thugs like he did in The Gamesters of Triskelion. This year I gave it to Jed Rees, an Oh That Guy actor who played one of the aliens in Galaxy Quest. To this day, I consider Galaxy Quest the best Star Trek movie ever made.

2. The Canadians among us. Not every Canadian actor hangs around Toronto or Vancouver waiting for a guest shot on one of the many shows shot up there. Jed Rees and John Kapelos have done a lot of work south of the the 45th parallel and Barbara Eve Harris was actually born in Barbados but moved to Canada as a youngster.

3. Nepotism and not. We have two Juniors on the list, Alan Hale Jr., who can fairly be said to have been given a family connection boost, and Freddie Prinze Jr., who didn't get that much of a boost at all. His father died at the age of 22, a few months before his son turned one year old.

4. MST3K. Alan Hale Jr. was in both The Giant Spider Invasion and The Crawling Hand, movies shown on the Satellite of Love.

5. The Guys at the Door. Two 77 year olds, British actor George Innes and American director Lewis Teague, are the oldest living people on the list today and no one younger than they are has died, so they count as the Guys at the Door. As always, special best birthday wishes to them,

Many happy returns to all the living on the list, especially George Innes and Lewis Teague, and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.

Movie released
Oz the Great and Powerful released, 2013
 

Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in his 1956 book The Door Into Summer

Prediction: One thing that impressed me most [in the year 2000] was NullGrav. I had been taught in school that gravitation was something that nobody could ever do anything about, because it was inherent in the very shape of space. So they changed the shape of space, but only temporarily and locally.

Reality: Anti-gravity machines have been very popular in sci-fi forever, but I give credit to Heinlein for casually mentioning Einstein's explanation of how gravity works and why there really isn't much chance it will ever happen.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

My favorite part of Monday is digging into the OMNI Future Almanac for another prediction.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

27 August 2013

Birthdays
Alexa Vega b. 1988 (Spy Kids)
Peter Stormare b. 1953 (Armageddon, Minority Report)
Paul Rubens b. 1952 (Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie)
Barbara Bach b. 1947 (Caveman)

Besides being one of the Cute Girls on the list, Ms. Vega earns the Picture Slot over the other actors on the list because Spy Kids is a defining role for her, while the other actors are better known for non-genre work, Stormare in Fargo, Rubens as Pee-Wee Herman and Bach as a Bond girl.

Many happy returns to all.
 

In the year 2000!

Prediction: A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity

Predictor: Robert A. Heinlein in his 1950 set of predictions for the future

Reality: Some of Einstein's ideas kinda sorta became part of popular culture, but his view of gravity and the conclusions that should be drawn from it haven't quite sunk into consciousness of the general public. (Objects warp spacetime locally, the more massive the object, the greater the warp.)

Getting into outer space and colonizing it are major concepts in science fiction and even actual scientists like Stephen Hawking and Neil DeGrasse Tyson have bought into the idea that outer space is our future. If we do achieve it, it won't be by "taming" gravity. Gravity is a core concept of the universe and a hell of a lot bigger than we are.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Because progress hadn't quite reached the dizzying speeds of the mid 20th Century, futurists from the early 20th Century tend to be more sensible and get more stuff right that their later counterparts. We will see a fine example of this in another prediction about the 21st Century from 1905 by T. Baron Russell.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

24 February 2013

 Birthdays
Edward James Olmos b. 1947

...in the year 2001!

-->Predictor:   Gen. Carlos Romulo (Philippine delegate to the United Nations):

Colonialism will have ended...

Instead of 35 million increase a year, world population will increase by 100 million a year...

I might be able to talk to Manila from New York with something I have in my pocket...

Predictor: Oliver Read (editor Radio & Television News):

All rails and planes will be radio-controlled...

Long distance shipping by rockets...

Atomic energy supplies electrical power, solar radiation supplies heat...

Telephones with attached TVs are the standard...

Trips to the moon and Mars should be a reality...

Anti-gravity devices will allow us to float from place to place...

Electronic devices will be able to pick up and decode thought waves...

Reality: The general is obviously not a tech guy and Mr. Read definitely is, but the general gets two out of three (the actual increase per year in 2001 is closer to 70 million), while being generous, Read gets the first one then misses six straight. Planes are more like in constant radio contact rather than truly radio controlled. Rockets use a hell of a lot of fuel and are very hard to land, solar radiated heat is still a very small part of the grid, TV phones exist but aren't standard, space travel, not so much. Anti-gravity was a popular concept in mid-century sci-fi, but that's just a sign that these guys didn't really understand Einstein's ideas about gravity very well. Being anti-gravity means being anti-geometry, and not in the sense that you really didn't enjoy geometry class. 

And then there's electronic telepathy. Well, not yet, not close and - if Odin, Vishnu and the little baby Jebus are kind - not in my lifetime.

 Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! We finish off the Amazing Stories predictions. A numbers guy doesn't do that well with numbers and a guy who makes pencils tells us... PENCILS ARE AWESOME!

Hard to argue with that.

 
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!