12 January 2015

Birthdays
Nathan Gamble b. 1998 (The Hole, The Mist, The Dark Knight)
Luke Bromley b. 1944 (The World’s End, Torchwood)
Tiler Peck b. 1989 (Donnie Darko)
Will Rothhaar b. 1987 (Grimm, Battle Los Angeles, Fringe, Radio Free Albemuth, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Buffy)
Naya Rivera b. 1987 (Frankenhood)
Vanessa Johansson b. 1980 (Day of the Dead)
David Mitchell b. 1979 (author, Cloud Atlas)
Kaja Foglio b. 1970 (illustrator, Girl Genius)
Rachel Harris b. 1968 (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, Star Trek: Voyager, SeaQuest 2032)
Chris Gartin b. 1968 (Transcendence, True Blood, M.A.N.T.I.S.)
Vendela Kirsebom Thomessen b. 1967 (Batman & Robin)
Olivier Martinez b. 1966 (Cybergeddon)
Barbara Scolaro b. 1966 (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 2, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion)
Rob Zombie b. 1965 (director, The Lords of Salem, Halloween I and II [2007 and 2009], The Devil’s Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses)
Simon Russell Beale b. 1961 (Penny Dreadful [2015], Into the Woods, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [2011 TV], Alice in Wonderland [1999 TV])
Oliver Platt b. 1960 (Gods Behaving Badly, X-Men: First Class, 2012, Bicentennial Man, Lake Placid, Tall Tale, Flatliners)
Wanda Cannon b. 1960 (Andromeda, Stephen King’s Dead Zone, Code Name: Eternity, Earth: Final Conflict, My Secret Identity)
Ralf Moller b. 1959 (The Scorpion King, Mutant X, Relic Hunter. Andromeda, Conan [1998 TV], Batman & Robin, Universal Soldier)
John Lasseter b. 1957 (director, Cars 1 & 2, Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug’s Life)
Rockne S. O'Bannon b. 1955 (writer, Constantine, Defiance, Revolution, V [2011], Farscape, Creature, Invasion, Alien Nation, SeaQuest 2032, Twilight Zone [1986], Amazing Stories)
Kirstie Alley b. 1951 (Village of the Damned, Deadly Nightmares, Runaway, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Quark)
Haruki Murakami b. 1949 (author, 1Q84, Sputnik Sweetheart)
Anthony Andrews b. 1948 (Tales from the Crypt, Nightmare Classics, Doomwatch)
Roger Ewing b. 1942 (Bewitched)
Geoffrey Hoyle b. 1941 (author, 2010: Living in the Future)
Bob Dishy b. 1934 (The Twilight Zone [1985])
Bruce Lansbury b. 1930 (writer, Swamp Thing, The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, The Powers of Matthew Star, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century)
House Peters Jr. b 1916 died 1 October 2008 (Twilight Zone, Target Earth, Red Planet Mars, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Batman and Robin [1949], King of the Rocket Men, Flash Gordon)
Ray Teal b, 1902 died 2 April 1976 (I Dream of Jeannie, The Twilight Zone, The Absent-Minded Professor, Men Into Space)
Jack London b. 1876 died 22 November 1916 (author, The Iron Heel)
Charles Perrault b. 1628 died 16 May 1703 (author, Mother Goose)

Notes from the birthday list.
1. The Picture Slot. To be honest, the only person on the list today I consider to have a truly iconic genre role is Kirstie Alley in The Wrath of Khan and I used her picture before. German bodybuilder Ralf Moller was Conan on the TV show, but I never saw it and I don't know how many people did. So I thought about the birthday folk who are not in front of the camera and decided Charles Perrault's Mother Goose is the most important work in the fantasy field.  

2. Spot the Canadian. Oliver Platt was born in Canada, but his father was a United States diplomat stationed there, so he does not have Canadian citizenship or a credit list that shows Canadian tendencies. There is one Canadian native and the credit list does give her nationality away, though it's mostly from last century. Good luck!

3. The Guy at the Door. Producer/writer Bruce Lansbury turns 85 today. Everyone younger than he is alive and everyone older is dead, though it should be noted that the next oldest person, House Peters Jr., was born 14 years earlier, a large gap. Ignoring the randomness of being born on January 12, he also has an older sister named Angela who is still with us. In any case, Lansbury is The Guy at the Door today and I send out special best wishes for many happy returns.

Many happy returns to all the living on the list, especially to Bruce Lansbury, and to the dead, thanks for all the memories.
 

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in both 2001: A Space Odyssey [1968] and 2010: odyssey two [1982].

Prediction: On 12 January 1992, The HAL 9000 becomes operational.

Reality: First a technicality. The 1992 date is from the Kubrick movie and Clarke's sequel book. In Clarke's book adaption of the movie, the date is 12 January 1997.

As for reality, computers still aren't anything like HAL, but I consider HAL and Skynet important enough to have their "birthdays" commemorated every year. They are by no means the first examples in science fiction of machines overtaking humans and making us obsolete, but both are given exact dates, an important distinction as far as the blog is concerned, and both are still cultural touchstones.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

The post-mortem for the picks from ESPN's 14 pro football experts of this weekend's four football games.


Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

12 January 2014

Birthdays
Will Rothhaar b. 1987 (Battle Los Angeles, Buffy, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Kaja Foglio b. 1970 (illustrator, Girl Genius)
David Mitchell b. 1979 (author, Cloud Atlas)
Oliver Platt b. 1960 (X-Men: First Class, 2012, Bicentennial Man, Lake Placid, Tall Tale)
Rockne S. O'Bannon b. 1955 (writer, Farscape, V, Alien Nation, Revolution, Twilight Zone [1986])
Kirstie Alley b. 1951 (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Village of the Damned)
John Lasseter b. 1957 (director, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Cars, Cars 2)
Haruki Murakami b. 1949 (author, 1Q84, Sputnik Sweetheart)
Geoffrey Hoyle b. 1942 (author, 2010: Living in the Future)
Jack London b. 1876 died 22 November 1916 (author, The Iron Heel)

One of those rare birthday lists when writers and artists outnumber actors. The Picture Slot goes to Kirstie Alley as Saavik. At the risk of sounding sexist, I can still look at old pictures and think "Wait, Kirstie Alley was a Vulcan? Now hang on... KIM CATRALL WAS A VULCAN? Now you are just pulling my leg."

One name I want to introduce is Geoffrey Hoyle, son of Sir Fred Hoyle who wrote sci-fi with his dad. (Not to be confused with the British performer Geoff Hoyle, known for his work in The Lion King and a founder of the San Francisco group The Pickle Family Circus.) In 1972, Geoffrey Hoyle wrote a children's book entitled 2010: Living in the Future. It's out of print, but I've found a copy online, so Hoyle is going to be a regular weekly contributor to the prediction section over the next few months.

Many happy returns to all the living on our list, and to Jack London, thanks for predicting exact dates in The Iron Heel.

Prediction: On 12 January 1992, the HAL 9000 becomes operational

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in the screenplay of 2001: A Space Odyssey, repeated in the book 2010. (pedantic note: In Clarke's novelization of the original screenplay, the date is 12 January 1997.)

Reality: I don't intend the blog to become a greatest hits collection, so as a general rule I won't be repeating every prediction that has an exact date on its anniversary. But some science fiction characters are iconic and HAL 9000 certainly qualifies. Most sci-fi before the microprocessor revolution of the early 1970s either ignores computers or doesn't realize how quickly they will become so big a part of people's lives, and for that Clarke a lot of credit for coming up with HAL in the late 1960s. Instead of underestimating the importance of computers, he writes about computer technology that wasn't actually possible by the 1990s. It's not the first instance of "our creations are going to take over" in science fiction. Rossum's Universal Robots works with that theme in 1920. But 2001 is a major milestone in science fiction being taken seriously by Hollywood, and the theme of a computer takeover of humanity is continued in later works like Colossus: The Forbin Project, WarGames and the Terminator movies and TV shows, among many others. Just like Richard Matheson's I Am Legend deserves props as the start of the Zombie Apocalypse movement, Arthur C. Clarke's HAL 9000 is a major early influence in the Cyber Apocalypse movement.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Monday means OMNI Future Almanac, still one of my favorite sources to delve into, more beloved for boldness than for accuracy.

Wait... I should make that MUCH more beloved for boldness.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

23 December 2013

Birthdays
Conor Carroll b. 1998 (Ender’s Game)
Estella Warren b. 1978 (Planet of the Apes)
Corey Haim b. 1971 died 10 March 2010 (Silver Bullet, The Lost Boys)
Stefan Arngrim b. 1955 (Land of the Giants, Fear No Evil, Strange Days, The X Files, Battlestar Galactica:Razor, V, Caprica, Fringe, Arrow)
Charles Herbert b. 1948 (The Fly, Men Into Space, 13 Ghosts, Twilight Zone)
Robert McCall b. 1919 died 26 February 2010 (artist, LIFE magazine, 2001: A Space Odyssey)

Odd coincidence today. Four of our six birthday folk got their start as child actors. Stefan Arngrim was on Land of the Giants, did a little work in the 1970s and 1980s, but from the mid 1990s on has worked very steadily. He lost his baby fat and is not recognizable from his childhood pictures. I'm not sure he even qualifies as an "Oh, that guy" actor, despite a lot of roles. The late Corey Haim is the best known face of the four child stars, Estella Warren easily qualifies for the Pretty Girl = Picture Slot criterion, but for a change the picture is an illustration, Robert McCall's poster painting from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Like Syd Mead and others, McCall drew a bright shiny future, very unlike the dystopias that are depicted as the probable future today.
 

Predictor: OMNI Future Almanac, published 1982

Prediction (score): The Office of the Future! Here are ten innovations that OMNI thought would be in effect by the end of the century.

1. Electronic Mail. (1 for 1.)
2. Data Banking. (They mean large data storage systems. 2 for 2.)
3. Teleconferencing. (3 for 3.)
4. Supergraphics! (Well, they don't leap tall buildings in a single bound, but compared to what was available in 1982, this has to count as a hit as well. 4 for 4.)
5. Automatic translation of speech. (This is still not practical, so I'll count it as the first miss. 4 for 5.)
6. Voice activated typewriter. (Again, this wasn't available by 2000 and is still in the early phase, so let's call it 4 of 6.)
7. Programmable sound silencer for open office space. (Things started out so well, didn't they? 4 of 7.)
8. Electronic blackboards that store images for later use. (5 of 8.)
9. Faxes will reproduce tens of thousands of pages a second. (Umm... no. 5 of 9. Also, at that speed, can you imagine how often the machine would jam?)
10. Videodisc storage of data. (Well, kind of. CD-ROM is the same idea as videodisc, and for a while that was a popular data storage device for big stuff until flash drives became so tiny and cheap. If we count 2000 as the cut-off date, I'm going to give this one a full point, bringing the whole prediction up to 6 of 10.)

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Looking backward, I pick my five favorite predictions of the year and put them up in our Year End review. Tomorrow, my man crush returns. Longtime readers need no further explanation.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

16 December 2013

Birthdays
Anna Popplewell b. 1988 (The Chronicles of Narnia)
Theo James b. 1984 (Divergent, Underworld: Awakening)
Christina Cabot b. 1969 (The Incredible Hulk [2008])
Miranda Otto b. 1967 (War of the Worlds, Lord of the Rings)
Benjamin Bratt b. 1963 (The Andromeda Strain[2008], Catwoman, Red Planet, Demolition Man)
Shane Black b. 1961 (writer, Iron Man 3, Last Action Hero, The Monster Squad)
Xander Berkeley b. 1955 (Being Human, Kick-Ass, Timecode, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, The X-Files, Candyman, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Twilight Zone, V, Gattaca)
Ben Cross b. 1947 (Star Trek, Jack the Giant Killer, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Dark Shadows[1991], The Twilight Zone)
Terence Knox b. 1946 (SeaQuest 2032, Lois & Clark, Twilight Zone, V)
Philip K. Dick b. 1928 died 3/2/1982
(won 1963 Hugo for The Man in the High Castle)
Sir Arthur C. Clarke b. 1917 died 3/19/2008
(won 1974 Hugo and Nebula for Rendezvous with Rama)
(won 1980 Hugo and Nebula for The Fountains of Paradise)

If I were in the mood to give the Picture Slot to an actor today, it would likely be Xander Berkeley, a serious "oh, that guy" face with a long career. But since this blog is about science fiction, the Picture Slot has to be one of our two late writers, and since I've had Arthur C. Clarke's picture up many times, instead you are looking at a young Philip K. Dick and his cat.

(Also in my research for birthdays today, Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in 1770 and Jane Austen in 1775. That's a whole lot of famous for one day.)

Many happy returns of the day to the living on the list, and to Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke, thanks for all the memories, some of which may not actually be ours.
   
 

In the Year 2000!

Predictor: OMNI Future Almanac,  published 1982

Prediction (and reality): The 10 most populous states in 2000, with population rounded to the nearest thousand (actual population in parentheses, percentage mistake)

1. California 27,309,000 (33,872,000 low by 19.1%)
2. New York 17,961,000 (18,976,000, low by 5.3%)*
3. Texas 17,167,000 (20,852,000, low by 17.6%)*
4. Florida 14,394,000 (15,982,000 low by 10.0%)
5. Pennsylvania 12,317,000 (12,281,000 high by 0.3%)**
6. Illinois 11,923,000 (12,419,000 low by 4.0%)**
7. Ohio 11,051,000 (11,353,000 low by 2.7%)
8. Michigan 10,148,000 (9,938,000 high by 4.8%)
9. New Jersey 8,425,000 (8,414,000 high by 0.1%)
10. North Carolina 7,226,000 (8,049,000 low by 10.2%)

Okay, how good is this mathematically? It misses the growth in the Sun Belt by a bunch. Texas and New York should be switched, as should Pennsylvania and Illinois, while North Carolina was 11th in the 2000 census behind Georgia. If I was grading this, I would say two of the predictions are excellent, four more are acceptable and four are not acceptable.

It may seem that I just enjoy mocking The OMNI Future Almanac, but I love it as a source. It was absolutely unafraid to write down exact numbers on exact dates like it knew what it was talking about. Better to be bold and wrong than wishy-washy and kinda sorta right.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

We get another grumpy view of the 20th Century from H.G. Wells, still our regular Tuesday guy until the end of the year.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

1 December 2013

 Birthdays
Zoe Kravitz b. 1988 (X-Men: First Class, After Earth)
Dean O’Gorman b. 1976 (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena, The Legend of the Seeker, The Hobbit)
Nestor Carbonell b. 1967 (The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Lost, The Tick)
Andrew Adamson b. 1966 (director, Shrek, Shrek II, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Jo Walton b. 1964 (won 2012 Hugo and Nebula for Among Others)
Jeremy Northam b. 1961 (The Invasion, Mimic, The Net)
Treat Williams b. 1951 (Eve of Destruction, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Deep Rising, The Empire Strikes Back)
Richard Pryor b. 1940 died 10 December 2005 (Superman III)
Woody Allen b. 1935 (director, Sleeper)
Malachi Throne b. 1928 died 13 March 2013 (Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek, The Six Million Dollar Man, Land of the Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Batman, The Outer Limits)

Nice mix of actors, writers and directors on the list today. I feel a little bad adding Richard Pryor, remembering such a huge talent for such a terrible movie. I don't feel bad adding Woody Allen, because Sleeper is a great parody of science fiction.

The Picture Slot goes to Malachi Throne, a very busy character actor who died earlier this year before I decided to start the Never to be Forgotten thread. He's one of the handful of actors that was on the original Star Trek and on the later show. He was also on Babylon 5. But his 1960s sci-fi resume is even more impressive, as he was on every big budget sci-fi show in the 1960s except Twilight Zone, which means Batman, The Outer Limits, all Four Irwin Allen shows and as previously mentioned Star Trek.

Besides my wishes for many happy returns to all the living on the list, I send out my best wishes to the family and friends of Malachi Throne, from a fan. He is never to be forgotten.

Prediction: At 0150 GMT on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world began to ring.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in the short story Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein, 1965

Reality: The story is about an interconnected system of telephones taking over the world by causing a worldwide financial panic. He's not the only writer afraid of machines taking over back in the 1960s. The novel Colossus was written in 1966 by Dennis Feltham Jones and is the basis for the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project. ACC overstates how quickly computers will become as powerful as they are today and as a writer of fiction, he needs to have a protagonist and the soon to be omnipotent machines are as good a choice as any. The story didn't become true and has not become true to this day, so the only points I can give Old Art because he saw that computers were going to change significantly, a real world trend that many science fiction writers did not touch on, or if so they tended to gloss over.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A prediction from earlier this year can now be tested. Was it right or wrong?

You'll know if you join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

Never to be Forgotten:Frederik Pohl 1919-2013

Frederik Pohl died yesterday at the age of 93. He was, among other things, a writer and editor. Besides his decades of work in science fiction, much of his early stuff under pen names, the Encyclopedia Brittanica employed him as an "official expert" on the Emperor Tiberius. He also wrote ad copy and wrote for Popular Science. He worked for a while as an agent, his best known client being Isaac Asimov. During World War II, he served in a bomber squadron in Italy, the 456th. (Another famous author, Joseph Heller, had similar service but in a different unit, the 488th.)

He won a Nebula for Man Plus, a Nebula and a Hugo for Gateway. He wrote many books in collaboration with other writers, including Lester Del Rey and Jack Williamson while all parties were alive and well, and he finished Arthur C. Clarke's The Last Theorem after Clarke died.

He didn't have much luck writing for films or TV. Tunnel Under the World was turned into an obscure Italian film. He wrote one episode of the 1952 sci-fi show Tales of Tomorrow and his stories were turned into episodes of the 1960s show Out of the Unknown and the somewhat better known though little loved 1980s series Tales from the Darkside.

A lot of his work attacks consumerism, including The Space Merchants, a dystopian satire about a planet ruled by ad agencies. No wonder so few of his stories were filmed.


Two different quotes are called Pohl's Law. The first is "Nobody is ever ready for anything." The second is "Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere will not hate it." 

As a mathematician, I am always looking for a counter-example for any general statement. I believe I can refute the first version of Pohl's Law. The second version, on the other hand, is pretty much golden.

Best wishes to the family and friends of Frederik Pohl, from a fan. May he never be forgotten.

1 August 2013

Birthdays
Miracle Laurie b. 1981 (Dollhouse)
Jason Momoa b. 1979 (Game of Thrones, Conan, Stargate:Atlantis)
John Carroll Lynch b. 1963 (Paul, Star Trek:Voyager)

Ms. Laurie gets the Picture Slot both for being the Cute Girl and for being a Whedonverse alum. I liked Momoa in Game of Thrones, but my favorite actor in the list is Mr. Lynch, so good in small but very different roles in non-genre films like Fargo, Zodiac and Gran Torino.

Many happy returns of the day to all concerned.

Movies released
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor released, 2008  

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke

Prediction: 2001: The computer HAL-9000 wakes astronaut Dave Bowman from his suspended animation with an injection.

Reality: We do have people on space stations, but they are in earth orbit and there is no need for suspended animation.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Unless I've overlooked something, another regular feature will be singing the swan song tomorrow, as the last of the German chocolate postcards is published.


Join us then... IN THE FUTURE! 

18 July 2013

Birthday
Syd Mead b. 1933

Most other great science fiction illustrators are known best for the work they did in the science fiction magazines. While Mead did do some book illustrations, some of his best work is in catalogs from companies like U.S. Steel and Sony, depicting a smooth and shiny future. Regular readers may recall the illustration I nicked from the 1988 Los Angeles Times Magazine I recapped titled L.A. 2013.

In the late 1970s, he started doing posters and design work in movies like the first Star Trek, Blade Runner and Tron. More recent films with his signature look include Johnny Mnemonic and Mission: Impossible III.

Many happy returns to a man who did as much as anyone to give the future a look of hope and glamor.


Movies released
The Dark Knight released, 2008
Jurassic Park III released , 2001  
 

Prediction: In 2010, the nursing facilities in Disneyville in Florida will use nurses that are holograms.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in Odyssey Two, published 1982

Reality: In Clarke's story, the holograms are fairly realistic and one cantankerous old female patient is proud she can tell the difference and plays tricks on the mechanical helpmates. Holographic technology looked like it was going to get cool back about thirty to forty years ago, but the present day uses are on a much more modest scale.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

On the subject of future health care, we have a prediction about robotic health care providers from Jaron Lanier's new book Who Owns the Future?
 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

27 June 2013

Birthdays
Matthew Lewis b. 1988 (Harry Potter)
Christian Kane b. 1974 (Angel)
J.J. Abrams b. 1966

I didn't read all the books, so I was happily surprised by the awesomeness of Neville Longbottom in the last movie.

Movies released
WALL-E released, 2008

Prediction:2001: Frank Poole is the first man to reach the surface of Saturn.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey 

Reality: Poole doesn't enjoy it much, being dead and all.

Yet again, sci-fi loves them some space travel, but humans don't agree all that much.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

It's German chocolate postcard time again. Yummy!

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE! 

13 June 2013

Birthdays
Kat Dennings b. 1986 (Thor)
Chris Evans b. 1981 (Captain America, Fantastic Four, Marvel's The Avengers)
Mark Correy b. 1965 (Engineer Alex on Enterprise)
Stellan Skarsgård b. 1951 (Thor, Marvel's the Avengers)
Malcolm MacDowell b. 1943 (A Clockwork Orange, Heroes, Tank Girl, Star Trek: Generations)

Kat Dennings = Cute Girl = Picture Slot today. It's hard to find pictures of her that aren't "cleavage forward", which is a shame because she has a lovely face.

Not that I am opposed to cleavage. Oh, no, indeedy.

Other than that, today is very heavily weighted towards the Marvel Universe. Many happy returns to everyone on the list.

Movies released
The Incredible Hulk released, 2008

And yet again, more Marvel Universe. It probably deserves its own label, so fairness dictates a DC Universe label as well. I'll put both of them on my "to do" list.

Prediction: In 2010, we discover life on the Jovian moon Europa.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2010: odyssey two, published in 1982


Reality: We haven't gotten this kind of up close and personal on Europa yet, so we can't confirm or deny this. Once again, even with a lot of evidence to the contrary by 1982, sci-fi writers like Clarke are still certain space exploration is going to be as interesting to governments as it is to fanboys.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Because of pre-emptions, it's been about a month since we saw a German chocolate postcard. That oversight will be rectified tomorrow.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE! 

23 May 2013

Birthday
James Blish b. 1921 died 29 July 1975
(won 1959 Hugo for A Case Of Conscience)

Doing a little digging, Mr. Blish also wrote some near future histories and though out of print, they are available at my local public library (yay, socialism!), so his predictions will start showing up on the blog in the next few weeks.

There are several pictures of Blish on the Internet, most of them taken when he was older. He shaved off the pencil thin mustache, which is a damned dirty shame. A man in a sharp suit with a pencil thin mustache is a man who is going places.

 

Prediction: 2010: The Chinese land on Jupiter’s moon Europa with plans to claim it, the first nation to claim part of space as their own, planning to export massive amounts of water from it.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2010: Odyssey Two, published 1982

Reality: If Clarke gets any points for this one, it's that he sees China will be a major player about thirty years into the future. Writing in 1982, the shuttle program is boosting interest in space exploration, so he can be somewhat forgiven for assuming things were going to start moving again in a big damned hurry.

Even with excuses, he was wrong about the future of space exploration. And as for the reason, water is still plentiful enough that we don’t have to import it from off-world. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

A French postcard foresees the future of education... in the year 2000!

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

9 May 2013

Birthday
Rosario Dawson b. 1979

Ms. Dawson's best known roles are not in genre films, but she was in Sin City and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief...

Wait a second. Do I have to explain why I put a picture of Rosario Dawson up on my blog? No, my friend, I do not.

Many happy returns, Ms. Dawson.

Prediction: 1998: The Chinese make their third expedition to the moon.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey, published 1968

Reality:  The Chinese did get into space in 2003 and their future plans include a manned space station and expeditions to the moon and Mars, many, many five year plans from now.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!


An exact date from a movie.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

25 April 2013

Birthdays
Jason Lee b. 1970
Gina Torres b. 1969
Hank Azaria b. 1964
Peter Jurasik b. 1950

Some very good actors are sharing a birthday today, but as regular readers know, my standard operating procedure is "Pretty Girl = picture slot".

It's an excellent rule, don't you agree?
  

In the year 2000!

Prediction: The greatest invention to come: A replicator that can copy anything.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke on the BBC-TV show Panorama in 1964

Reality: To be fair, Clarke put this prediction at the end of his list and it's clear it was more of a wish than a prediction. He's not the only person in science fiction to long for such a thing. There were replicators on the original Star Trek series and Jean-Luc Picard is famous for asking for "Tea, Earl Grey, hot".

The problem is that matter comes in these pesky packages called molecules and you can't just have a near infinite supply of these hanging around until some bald guy decides he wants a tea mixed with a little citrus at a specific temperature in a nice China teacup.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!


Tomorrow it's a German chocolate postcard! I don't know yet the prediction for the year 2000 will be accurate or way off base, but it's a safe bet the illustration will be charming.


 

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

 

18 April 2013

Birthdays
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley b. 1987
David Tennant b. 1971
Clive Revill b. 1930

If I used my standard rule of Photo Slot = Pretty Girl, it would be hard to find prettier than Ms. Huntington-Whiteley, the Victoria's Secret model who replaced Megan Fox in the Transformers series, but I wanted to give a shout out to fans of The Doctor and use Mr. Tennant's likeness instead. The third name on our list is the original voice of the Emperor in the Star Wars films. Many happy returns to all.

Prediction: 1997: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics publishes Fifty Years of UFOs.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke, Odyssey Two, published 1982
 
Reality: The AIAA did some work about UFOs in the late sixties and early seventies. I can’t find evidence of any more recent work, but maybe the grey skinned aliens are just trying to hide it from us using their well-known mind control techniques.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
 
It's time for another French postcard, so we can assume the French in 1900 will predict the French in 2000 are acting like jerks.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

11 April 2013

Birthday
Tricia Helfer b. 1974

Ms. Helfer is best known as Number Six on Battlestar Galactica. Yesterday I teased her birthday calling her "the best looking toaster ever", toaster being one of the disparaging terms humans use for the Cylons. Reasonable people may argue about the prettiest - it's not a big spoiler to mention both Grace Park and Lucy Lawless play Cylons as well - but it's completely clear which character is the most glamorous. Many happy returns.

Prediction: 1998: Quarantine on the moon due to mutated flu virus.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey, published 1968

Reality: ACC gets a point for understanding that flu viruses do mutate and that makes them nastier. But... we didn't establish bases on the moon and no one but the unelectable Newt Gingrich is even making noises about the idea.

Sorry, Art. It was your dream but it didn't come true.

 Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Because of pre-emptions, it's been nearly a month since we got a German chocolate postcard. I won't say what wonders it will predict for the year 2000, but it's a safe bet to say the illustration will be charming.

 
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

28 March 2013

Birthdays
Nick Frost b. 1972
Lara Flynn Boyle b. 1970
Brett Ratner b. 1969

Frost has done several genre projects, the best known in the U.S. is the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead with Simon Pegg. Ratner directed X-Men:The Last Stand.

I chose Ms. Boyle for The Picture Position using the pretty girl rule, but chose a picture of her from the Twin Peaks era, before she went on a strange binge of plastic surgery and extreme dieting. It was during that era she was in her most famous genre role in Men In Black 2.
 
 

Prediction: In 2001, the trip from Earth to Saturn takes about seven months.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey, published 1968

Reality:  That's really fast. In Clarke's story, it's a manned craft that makes the trip at that speed and we have only sent unmanned spacecraft anywhere farther away than the Moon. The ESA probe Cassini-Huygens took about seven years to get from Earth to Saturn.

Looking online, the fastest speeds for any manned spaceship so far was 25,000 mph (~40,000 kph) for Apollo 10 on its trip to the Moon. This would be closer to 150,000 mph or 240,000 kph.

This isn't just a minor quibble. How fast a spaceship can travel makes an enormous difference in how far it can travel. Even though space is very empty, any stray pebble hitting a ship at these speeds could a lot of damage. Until we have something like the force fields used in Star Trek, we can't possibly consider moving at speeds approaching the speed of light, and if we can't go about that fast, traveling outside our solar system is out of the question.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 

We interrupt our usual Antique Postcard Day presentations on Fridays for a visit from a mysterious stranger with advanced alien technology who comes to Earth hoping to save us from destroying ourselves.
 
Join me then... IN THE FUTURE! 

21 March 2013

Birthday
Gary Oldman b. 1958  

Mr. Oldman has appeared in many quality films over the years, and is known best to genre fans for his work in Harry Potter and the Batman series. Many happy returns.

Prediction: 1980s: Minsky and Good demonstrate neural networks could be generated automatically in accordance with an arbitrary learning process, producing “artificial brains”.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey, published in 1968

Reality:  Clarke realizes HAL is not just a simple evolution of small improvements over three decades from when he wrote the screenplay and it novelization to the end of the century, so he throws in a little expository jargon and gives it a date (yay!). In reality, very little that goes into a computer is "generated automatically". Programming is still time intensive and the programmers and designers still have to dot every j and cross every x by hand.

Still, Clarke is one of the few people in SF who had any idea of how much computers would improve and how quickly they would become part of everyday life. The big leap forward was in the 1970s when microprocessors can put "a computer on a chip", and since then, the hardware has gotten smaller and faster and cheaper, and because of all three improvements, computer chips can be found in a remarkable number of products today.


Still, the difference between HAL and a computer that can win at Jeopardy! is a huge chasm and I have no idea how it's going to be crossed.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! 

Fridays is Antique Postcard Day and it's the turn for the French. This often means people from the future acting like jerks and tomorrow is no exception.
 
Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

14 March 2013

Birthdays
Jamie Bell b. 1986
Mercedes McNab b. 1980
Michael Caine b. 1933

Once again, I make the heterosexual male choice for the birthday picture of the cute girl. Ms. McNab is best known as Harmony on Buffy and Angel. She did some very funny stuff on those shows.

Jamie Bell is best known for Billy Elliot, but he was also in in King Kong. Michael Caine has only a few genre films, notably Children of Men and Alfred in the most recent Batman movies.
  

Prediction: We will find no life on other planets in our solar system, except possibly Mars.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke on the 1964 BBC-TV show Horizon

Reality: Well, we haven't done as much exploration as the sci-fi writers expected by now, but the temperatures on the planets other than Earth and Mars don't allow for water, either only ice or only vapor. It's possible life exists without water in liquid form, but it would have to be radically different from anything we've ever seen and its environment would be toxic for us and vice versa.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! This Friday it's the turn for the 1900 German chocolate company's predictions about life ... in the Year 2000!

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!

28 February 2013

 Birthdays
John Turturro b. 1957

Mr. Turturro has had a great career and very little of it in fantasy or sci-fi films, but he was in the Transformers movies so his name is mentioned here.

In the year 2000!

Prediction: Our bodies will last longer. Even immortality may be in the cards.

Suspended animation will be used for travel into the future, fixing the ailments currently fatal and used for space travel.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke on Horizon, a BBC-TV series in 1964

Reality: Asimov got famous with his Three Laws of Robotics. Maybe I should come up with Three Laws of Humans.

Law #1: We are machines made of meat.
Law #2: Machines break down.
Law #3: Get used to Law #2.

Our bodies are lasting longer, but immortality doesn't look likely and suspended animation runs into the problem that hypothermia tends to cause brain damage. At least Clarke conceded how far it is between stars and faster than light travel just ain't gonna happen if Einstein was even close to correct.

Okay, here's law #4.

Law #4: Einstein was close to correct.

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE! You know what we haven't had in way too long? A German Chocolate postcard from 1900 telling us about life... in the year 2000!

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!

14 February 2013

Simon Pegg b. 1970
Anton Lesser b. 1952
Andrew Robinson b. 1942

Happy birthdays to all mentioned. Mr. Pegg (right, with cricket bat) gets the photo because Shaun of the Dead is my favorite piece of zombie based entertainment of all time.

I haven't seen the comedy Warm Bodies yet. That could be cute, but it has a high hurdle to vault to replace Shaun at the top of my list.

Andrew Robinson played Garak on Deep Space Nine, so this post gets a Star Trek label.

Movies released
Daredevil released 2003

By no means the best comic book movie, but it was when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner made the decision to become a couple, so it has some nice Valentine's Day undertones. (Affleck and Garner were both in Pearl Harbor, but he was dating Jennifer Lopez then. Nice trade-up for Affleck in my opinion.)

In the Year 2000!

Prediction: Men will be living on the moon.

Predictor: Arthur C. Clarke on the 1964 BBC-TV show Horizon

Reality: Not so much. I know that as a nerd I'm supposed to be all "Outer space, yay!", but as I have said before and will say again.

Any place where you have to bring your own water and breathable air is actively trying to kill you.

Looking ahead one day... INTO THE FUTURE! French postcards. You know what I'm talking about by now. Click on the link if unclear on the concept.

Join me then... IN THE FUTURE!