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Keyword: sciencefiction

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  • Doctor Who's Russell T Davies explains major change to Davros (Leftism destroys AGAIN!)

    11/18/2023 1:51:22 AM PST · by Ciaphas Cain · 38 replies
    Radio Times ^ | November 18 2023 | Morgan Jefferey
    Doctor Who returned to screens tonight as part of Children in Need, with a special five-minute scene featuring the Daleks and their creator Davros. ... Davros, played once again by Julian Bleach, looked different to to how viewers might remember him – and while fans might have assumed that's simply because this particular scene was set prior to the accident that left the character scarred and reliant on his support unit, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has explained that there was more to it than that. Speaking on new BBC Three companion series Doctor Who Unleashed, Davies said: "We...
  • Are you a robot? Sci-fi magazine stops accepting submissions after it found more than 500 stories received from contributors were AI-generated

    02/25/2023 7:43:53 PM PST · by SeekAndFind · 19 replies
    Daily Mail ^ | 02/25/2023 | Stephen Lepore
    In a story that they could have predicted in their own work, a science fiction magazine has asked people to stop sending stories generated by artificial intelligence in the latest sign of apps like ChatGPT gaining prominence. Clarkesworld, an award-winning sci-fi and fantasy publication based out of New Jersey, has temporarily cut off all submissions because they've gotten too many written by AI. The irony is not lost on the magazine, which has a robot for a mascot. Publisher and editor-in-chief Neil Clarke cut everyone off on February 20 after he was able to tell that hundreds of stories were...
  • First Martian life likely broke the planet with climate change, made themselves extinct

    10/13/2022 1:41:48 PM PDT · by Oldeconomybuyer · 203 replies
    Live Science via MSN ^ | October 13, 2022 | By Ben Turner
    Ancient microbial life on Mars could have destroyed the planet’s atmosphere through climate change, which ultimately led to its extinction, new research has suggested. The new theory comes from a climate modeling study that simulated hydrogen-consuming, methane-producing microbes living on Mars roughly 3.7 billion years ago. At the time, atmospheric conditions were similar to those that existed on ancient Earth during the same period. But instead of creating an environment that would help them thrive and evolve, as happened on Earth, Martian microbes may have doomed themselves just as they were getting started, according to the study published Oct. 10...
  • 'Blade Runner' at 40: Why the Ridley Scott Masterpiece is Still the Greatest Sci-Fi of All-Time

    06/27/2022 11:10:38 AM PDT · by ShadowAce · 113 replies
    Esquire ^ | 25 June 2022 | Tom Ward
    Los Angeles, 2019. Bursts of flame erupt over a city bathed in perpetual twilight. From the pyramid-like offices of the Tyrell Corporation, we see an eye in close-up, the lights of the city reflected in it. Whether this eye is human is yet to be determined. But, ultimately, in Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterwork, the eye of the beholder is irrelevant. In the world of Blade Runner the future is a hardscrabble hellscape with no escape. Is it any wonder, then, that Rutger Hauer’s band of rogue replicants – humanoid worker robots designed to blend in with the flesh and...
  • ‘Halo’ TV Series Is A Dull, Politically Correct Affair With Nothing To Say

    05/24/2022 12:03:33 PM PDT · by Kaslin · 37 replies
    The Federalist.com ^ | May 24, 2022 | Auguste Meyrat
    In the pantheon of video game mascots, few figures are as iconic as Master Chief from the “Halo” series. Donning his famous green armored spacesuit, he ventured into hostile worlds, taking down the Covenant, an alien race intent on conquering the universe and accessing the ring worlds, or “haloes,” left over by another more ancient alien race, the Forerunners. It was only a matter of time before idea-starved Hollywood adapted the popular series to TV or film. Already they have made movies for other popular video game franchises, such as “Super Mario,” “Resident Evil,” “Mortal Kombat,” “World of Warcraft,” “Tomb...
  • SFWA eats their own: Mercedes Lackey is made Grand Master, banned from Nebulas on same day

    05/24/2022 10:54:16 AM PDT · by texas booster · 58 replies
    Upstream Reviews ^ | May 24, 2022 | Michael Gallagher
    I once found woke ideology perfectly summed up by conservative commentator Jon Gabriel: a religion with many paths to damnation, but none to redemption. No matter what trails you blaze, what ground you break, how stanch and formidable an ally for The Cause™, you will eventually face your unpersoning at the hands of the Neojacobins. Just ask SFWA’s most recently appointed Grand Master, Mercedes Lackey. One can hardly imagine an author that could serve as a more suitable avatar of science fiction and fantasy’s leftward arc over the past 40 years than Mercedes Lackey. The protégé of Marion Zimmer Bradley...
  • Artificial Intelligence Could Already Be Conscious Claims Experts

    02/16/2022 10:32:02 PM PST · by ransomnote · 34 replies
    greatgameindia.com ^ | February 17, 2022 | GreatGameIndia
    [H/T Ymani Cricket]According to a retired professor of computer science at Oregon State University today’s large neural network artificial intelligence are already slightly conscious.In a recent Twitter post, the co-founder of a San Francisco-based Artificial Intelligence research lab stated that “today’s largest neural networks” may already be “slightly conscious.”OpenAI’s Ilya Sutskever did not specify which system or systems he was talking about, nor did he define “slightly conscious” in any way.It’s likely that he was talking about OpenAI’s GPT-3, an advanced language processing system designed for translation, question answering, and word replacement.Sutskever’s cryptic tweet soon sparked a debate among specialists...
  • ‘Doctor Who’ Is Dead, But Perhaps Not For Long

    12/10/2021 10:24:33 AM PST · by Kaslin · 102 replies
    The Federalist ^ | December 10, 2021 | Peter Pischke
    The BBC and wokeness killed the much-loved sci-fi TV series. The writer who last revived ‘Doctor Who’ is likely the only one who can save it now. “Doctor Who” is dead. Ratings haven’t been this low since the moribund 1980s. Fan interest is zilch, with little engagement on social media. The show just finished its 13th series, and the few who watched could only yawn. The doctor is on life support thanks to the BBC’s incessant diversity mandates, executive producer Chris Chibnall retcons, and the lazy pomposity of the first female doctor, Jodie Whittaker. But there is hope. A familiar...
  • Would stepping on the first butterfly really change the history of evolution?

    03/31/2018 10:01:45 AM PDT · by Simon Green · 64 replies
    Phys.org ^ | 03/29/18 | Jordi Paps
    Martha Jones: It's like in those films: if you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race. The Doctor: Then don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you? Science fiction writers can't seem to agree on the rules of time travel. Sometimes, as in Doctor Who (above), characters can travel in time and affect small events without appearing to alter the grand course of history. In other stories, such as Back To The Future, even the tiniest of the time travellers' actions in the past produce major ripples that unpredictably change...
  • The Science Says Everyone Needs a COVID-19 Booster Shot—and Soon

    08/01/2021 2:43:25 PM PDT · by CondoleezzaProtege · 94 replies
    Foreign Policy ^ | July 2021 | Laurie Garrett
    Sure enough, the United States is again awash in virus, with the incidence of new COVID-19 cases having soared 131 percent in the third week of July. To be clear, the vaccines available work well—especially the Pfizer and Moderna products based on mRNA technology. But it is likely that waning vaccine efficacy, coupled with a stubborn one-fifth of the adult population refusing any immunization, has opened the door for the dangerous mutant delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 to wreak havoc among the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. That’s why the United States is going to need a third dose of mRNA vaccines;...
  • How Twitter can ruin a life

    07/04/2021 8:17:03 AM PDT · by tbw2 · 43 replies
    Vox ^ | 06/30/2021 | Emily VanDerWerff
    How Twitter can ruin a life Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next. As a trans woman early in transition, Fall had the option of retreating to the relative safety of her legal, masculine identity. That’s what she did, staying out of the limelight and growing ever more frustrated by what had happened to her. She bristles when I ask her in an email if she’s stopped transitioning, but it’s the only phrase I can think of to describe how the situation appears. Isabel Fall...
  • Hugo Admin Team Members Resign, But Why?

    06/24/2021 2:56:47 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 50 replies
    Powered by Robots Blog ^ | 06/23/2021 | James Pyles
    Over the past several years, I’ve watched WorldCon repeatedly implode. Well, not exactly. It imploded in 2018 in a very spectacular way. WorldCon 2019 didn’t exactly implode, but then again, Jeanette Ng’s “acceptance” speech of the John W. Campbell award (now renamed “Astounding”) was her long awaited stab at a long-dead science fiction icon which spawned more of her displeasure at the “stale, pale, male crowd,” as well as a long list of other award renamings. The irony is that Ng also won a “Best Related Work” Hugo for 2020 because she complained about Campbell the year before. A rant...
  • Book Review: 'Thought Criminal' by Michael Reichenwald

    06/23/2021 8:13:27 AM PDT · by tbw2 · 3 replies
    Hubpages ^ | Feb 20, 2021 | Tamara Wilhite
    Michael Rectenwald is the author of "Google Archipelago" and "Beyond Woke". Thought Criminal is his first science fiction novel. In the book “Thought Criminal” by Michael Richenwald, a small group struggles to maintain even the concept of individuality and free will in the face of an ever-more powerful hive mind. They struggle to even connect with each other when every aspect of the system is suspect – including other people. That makes “Thought Criminal” a post-Singularity dystopian novel, though it has its strengths and weaknesses.
  • Disturbing New Info Emerges On Apparent “Magnetic” Side Effects Happening to Some COVID Vaccinated People

    06/10/2021 1:38:17 PM PDT · by Norski · 181 replies
    revolver news ^ | June 10, 2021 | revolver
    Have you heard of the “Magnetic Challenge?” No, it’s not some wacky teenage TikTok challenge, it’s actually much creepier. It all started as a rumor involving a microchipping conspiracy theory that involved the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s no secret that many people are leery about taking the vaccine for a number of reasons, namely because it hasn’t gone through the lengthy trials needed in order to receive FDA approval. However, a lot of folks are also convinced that the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a sinister plot to microchip the masses. One of those conspiracy theories involves “magnetized proteins.” Here’s some...
  • Worldcon Ordered to Apologize and Pay Conservative Author Jon Del Arroz for Banning Him and Calling Him 'Racist'

    06/06/2021 8:24:41 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 9 replies
    PJMedia ^ | 06/06/2021 | Megan Fox
    The snowflakes at Worldcon are having a very bad weekend. On Friday, the San Francisco chapter of Worldcon settled a lawsuit and agreed to pay restitution and to issue a public apology for banning conservative author Jon Del Arroz from their convention in 2018 and for besmirching him as a “racist.” .... The ban resulted when Del Arroz asked Worldcon for security measures because he feared for his safety due to the mob-like attacks on him and his family from the industry insiders. Instead of helping him, Worldcon banned him and made public statements claiming the author was a “racist”...
  • An Interview with Author Andrew Fox

    06/02/2021 7:24:32 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 3 replies
    Liberty Island Magazine ^ | November 7th, 2020 | Tamara Wilhite
    Author Andrew Fox’s first novel was Fat White Vampire Blues. He recently released a short story collection titled Hazardous Imaginings: The Mondo Book of Politically Incorrect Science Fiction. Tamara Wilhite: Hazardous Imaginings seems to be modeled off of Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions. Is that intentional? Andrew Fox: Most assuredly. Not long after Harlan died, I watched a documentary on him that had been made pretty late in his life. Watching it and mulling over his career, I thought, “If Dangerous Visions were published today, what kinds of stories would it include?” That got me thinking about the issue of taboos...
  • Civil disobedience challenging repressive authority: Harlan Ellison’s subversive and satirical story “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” the 2015 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner

    06/02/2021 1:36:23 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 16 replies
    Libertarian Futurist Society ^ | 2021 | Libertarian Futurist Society
    To highlight the Prometheus Awards’ four-decade-plus history and make clear why each winner deserves recognition as a pro-freedom and/or anti-authoritarian work, the Libertarian Futurist Society has been publishing since 2019 a series of Appreciations of past award-winners. Here is an Appreciation of Harlan Ellison’s “Repent Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman,” the 2015 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction.
  • Enter the Dragons

    05/10/2021 4:27:07 PM PDT · by tbw2 · 3 replies
    Declan Finn Blog ^ | 05/09/2021 | Declan Finn
    Why are the Dragon Awards a front in the culture war? Nerd culture is important. If you don’t believe me, look up “GamerGate“ sometime. While GG has been out of action for years (at least five years, IIRC) you’d think that it was a massive conspiracy theory on par with the Illuminati. It left a mark. You’d think the line was that “the Geek shall inherit the Earth.” In 2020, no one cared. That front was ignored entirely. The Leftist dirtbags who are interested in taking over every aspect of American life moved in. And while DragonCon is not a...
  • Burgeoning tech options of modern publishing – online, audio and print – made possible the Prometheus Award slate of 2021 Best Novel finalists

    04/13/2021 11:31:27 AM PDT · by tbw2 · 11 replies
    Libertarian Futurist Society ^ | 04/10/2021 | Libertarian Futurist Society
    The 2021 Prometheus Awards slate of Best Novel finalists, just announced, reflects an interesting first in the four-decade-plus history of the award. See if you can identify this first – hint: a reflection of a long-term trend in modern publishing – from scanning this list of the finalist novels, their authors and publishers: * Who Can Own the Stars? by Mackey Chandler (Amazon Kindle) * Storm between the Stars, by Karl K. Gallagher (Kelt Haven Press) * The War Whisperer, Book 5: The Hook, by Barry B. Longyear (Enchanteds) * Braintrust: Requiem, by Marc Stiegler (LMBPN Publishing) * Heaven’s River,...
  • Superversive Spotlight: Karl K. Gallagher

    04/04/2021 7:51:57 AM PDT · by tbw2 · 3 replies
    Upstream Reviews ^ | 4/3/2021 | Richard Paolinelli
    Upstream Reviews is a conservative science fiction book blog. In this piece, Richard Paolinelli interviews best-selling conservative sci-fi author Karl K. Gallagher.