Friday, October 9, 2009

This is stupid...

... but still kind of awesome.  I especially like the verse by Stephen Hawking.



My philosophy of science teacher in college absolutely detested Carl Sagan.  According to him, Sagan's oversimplification and folk-philosophizing completely ruined a whole generation in terms of critical scientific thought.  I tend to agree, but attempting to popularize the scientific method was probably not an altogether bad thing. 

...Plus it's not like we can autotune Copernicus.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Planetary 27

Finally.  The epilogue we've been waiting for for 2+ years.  We finally learn the fate of Ambrose Chase and I can finally buy the last paperback.

Check out the images below to get a glimpse of what I liked so much about this series.  The images are all from the last issue, but previous issues have included things like giant dinosaur monsters, a critique on the nihilistic comic heroes of the 1990's,  The ghost of a Hong Kong police officer who strongly resembles Chow Yon-Fat in Hard Boiled, and a criminal conspiracy involving both Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula.

Fitting with the rest of the series, the ending is strangely optimistic.  Since the series is basically a pastiche of action adventure stories ranging from those of H.G. Welles to those of Jack Kirby it makes sense that it would end with the implication that there is still a huge universe (or 10,000 universes) to explore and a lifetime of adventure to be had.


 



Sunday, October 4, 2009

Heading to Chicago

...In a couple of weeks.  I'll be there for a few days to attend the Society for Neuroscience conference.  I'll also be spending some time of the University of Chicago campus, which will be fun as they neglected to tell me they weren't accepting graduate students when I applied there a couple of years ago.