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!

28 November 2013

Birthdays
Alan Ritchson b. 1984 (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)
Mary Elizabeth Winstead b. 1984 (The Thing [2011], Grindhouse, Sky High, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)
Emun Elliott b. 1983 (Prometheus, Game of Thrones)
Daniel Henney b. 1979 (X-Men Origins Wolverine)
Ryan Kwanten b. 1975 (True Blood)
Maurissa Tancharoen b. 1975 (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog)
Alfonso Cuarón b. 1961 (director, Gravity, Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
S. Epatha Merkerson b. 1952 (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)
Ed Harris b. 1950 (Gravity, The Truman Show, Apollo 13, The Right Stuff)
Joe Dante b. 1946 (director, The Howling, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Gremlins, Innerspace, Small Soldiers)

The biggest movie star on the list is Ed Harris, but because I'm a Whedonverse fanboy, the Picture Slot goes to Maurissa Tancharoen, who is one of the show runners on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the bride of Jed Whedon, as well as having roles onscreen in Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible. I watched True Blood for a few seasons, but it bothered me how many of the characters in this very dangerous universe were just too damned stupid to live, and Ryan Kwanten's character had to be near the top of that list, which is not the actor's fault.

Many happy returns to everyone, and of course happy Thanksgiving to all the Yanks, both on the birthday list and reading the blog.

Predictor: Isaac Asimov, asked to predict 2014 in honor of the 1964 World's Fair

Prediction: Much effort will be put into the designing of vehicles with "Robot-brains", vehicles that can be set for particular destinations and that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. I suspect one of the major attractions of the 2014 fair will be rides on small roboticized cars which will maneuver in crowds at the two-foot level, neatly and automatically avoiding each other.

Reality: Okay! Isaac gets an A for this one, a solid 9.5 of 10. He loses the half point for "at the two foot level", which implies a very high-riding hovercraft, which would have to make noise and send around clouds of dust like a super-sized leaf blower. Getting machines to drive is in its infancy - parallel parking and avoiding accidents - but the "get you to your destination" is used very regularly.

Nice work, Ike, if I can call you Ike. Oh, I can't. Oops, sorry, won't happen again.

Looking on day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Friday means TED talks, and we get a bold prediction from 1998 by Billy Graham.

Billy Graham? The preacher or the wrestler?

All will be revealed one day... IN THE FUTURE!
  

7 November 2013

 Birthdays
Carl Steven b. 1974 died 31 July 2011 (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
Yunjin Kim b. 1973 (Lost)
Earl Boen b. 1945 (Terminator)

Very short birthday list today and no A-list actors. Carl Steven played Spock as a kid in the lamentable Star Trek III, Earl Boen was the psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman in the Terminator series and the Picture Slot goes to Yunjin Kim from Lost.

Carl Steven's story is very sad. He became addicted to prescription medications after a tonsillectomy, stole to support his addiction and was sent to jail in 2010, dying of a heroin overdose in prison about a year later.

Many happy returns to Mr. Boen and Ms. Kim.

Predictor: Jeane Dixon, reported in Popular Mechanics in 1966

Prediction:What will cars be like in 2016? The Automobile Club of Michigan, this year celebrating its 50th anniversary, wondered about this recently and approached widely publicized seer Jeane Dixon, asked her to gaze into her crystal ball and come up with a few answers. Fifty years from now, Miss Dixon predicted, cars will flit back and forth on cushions of air, the wheels retracting upon starting. They will be fueled by some exotic new compound yet to be developed; gasoline as we know it will have gone the way of the buggy whip. A radar-like device will guard against cars being involved in accidents.

Reality: Did Jeane Dixon crib "hovercraft" from Asimov's prediction of 1964? I'm not putting it past her. As for gasoline being obsolete, that has to count as a strike against her, but the radar-like device to avoid accidents is a solid hit, already advertised in fancy new cars.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Could gasoline go the way of the buggy whip? Cadillac unveils a prototype in 2009 that promises to counter petroleum's stranglehold on the world economy.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
 

4 November 2013

Birthdays
Matthew McConaughey b. 1969 (Contact, Reign of Fire)
Samantha Smith b. 1969 (Transformers, Supernatural)
Martin Balsam b. 1919 died 13 February 1996 (Twilight Zone)
Leonardo Cimino b. 1917 died 3 March 2012 (Dune, Waterworld, V)
Ian Wolfe b. 1896 died 23 January 1992 (THX 1138, Star Trek, Twilight Zone)

McConaughey is the only honest to Zeus movie star on the list, but he was in Reign of Fire, the movie that convinced me I was under no obligation to see every big budget sci-fi flick that hit the cineplexes. So instead the Picture Slot goes to Ian Wolfe as Mister Atoz of The Library in an episode of Star Trek. (Get it? AtoZ? Works in a library? Yeah, you get it. Yeah, not that good.) The actor in the background is unidentified.

I kid. I'm a kidder.
 

Predictor: Isaac Asimov's, forecasting the year 2014 in honor of the 1964 World's Fair.

Prediction:The world of 50 years hence will have shrunk further. At the 1964 fair, the G.M. exhibit depicts, among other things, crowded highways along which long buses move on special central lanes. There is every likelihood that highways at least in the more advanced sections of the world will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air a foot or two off the ground. Visitors to the 1964 fair can travel there in an "aquafoil," which lifts itself on four stilts and skims over the water with a minimum of friction. This is surely a stop-gap. By 2014 the four stilts will have been replaced by four jets of compressed air so that the vehicle will make no contact with either liquid or solid surfaces.

Jets of compressed air will also lift land vehicles off the highways, which, among other things, will minimize paving problems. Smooth earth or level lawns will do as well as pavements. Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.

Reality: Okay, lots of stuff to chew on here.

Special lanes for buses. Check.

Highways have passed their peak. Not yet.

Hovercraft. Or should I say.... HOVERCRAFT!


Ummm... no. But still, I was an impressionable pre-teen when hovercraft had their fleeting moment of being the Next Big Thing, and so I have a soft spot for them.

And, of course, as any Python fan will know, my hovercraft is full of eels.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Our regular schedule is interrupted by a comic book prediction of the year 1997, when London is a fascistic post-apocalyptic hellhole.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!