Nerd Arts

This guy, Kipkay, found an old Star Trek Laser Phaser toy 1976. The design is cool, but the light in it is a tad too wee. So he replaced the original lamp with a laser diode from a PlayStation 3 Blu-Ray laser pickup. The result: A great looking laser beam.

And he even had the courtesy of telling the world how to do it, for under $100!

Instruction Video

Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, to a Swedish immigrant mother and a father who was a power and telephone lineman.[1] His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather were newspaper publishers. Bradbury was a reader and writer throughout his youth, spending much time in the Carnegie Library in Waukegan. His novels Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Farewell Summer depict the town of Waukegan as “Green Town” and are semi-autobiographical. The Bradbury family lived in Tucson, Arizona, in 1926–27 and 1932–33 as his father pursued employment, each time returning to Waukegan, and eventually settled in Los Angeles in 1934, when Ray was thirteen. Bradbury graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938 but chose not to attend college. Instead, he sold newspapers at the corner of South Norton Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. He continued to educate himself at the local library, and having been influenced by science fiction heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, he began to publish science fiction stories in fanzines in 1938. His first paid piece was for the pulp magazine Super Science Stories in 1941, for which he earned $15.[2] He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942. His first book, Dark Carnival, a collection of short works, was published in 1947 by Arkham House. He married Marguerite McClure (1922–2003) in 1947, and they had four daughters.

A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian Chronicles into the hands of a respected critic. Isherwood’s glowing review followed and was a substantial boost to Bradbury’s career.

By: Marc Perton
Replicants, they call them. Created for offworld work. When one of them goes missing, they call me in. But this one’s different. Created in the likeness of Philip K. Dick by Hanson Robotics. Vanished suddenly. Missing for weeks. No one knows what happened. But the story is that some museum called the Smithsonian wanted to put him in a box and display him around the country. Not something a replicant would want. I suspect this one has already found some like-minded supporters who will attempt to keep it offworld indefinitely. Too bad he won’t live. But then again, who does?
via engadget

Baen Books is now making available — for free — a number of its titles in electronic format. We’re calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online — no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

The first is what you might call a “matter of principle.” This all started as a byproduct of an online “virtual brawl” I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

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Great science fiction radio plays, open licensed and free for downloading
My pal hugh Spenser is a hell of a science fiction writer, and he’s got a passion for the golden age of science fiction radio dramas. He wrote a six-part series of radio plays about the early days of science fiction fandom, which were produced by the wonderful Shoestring Theater and aired last summer on NPR. Hugh and Shoestring have released all six epiisodes as MP3s under a Creative Commons license that allows for the noncommercial redistribution. via BoingBoing

Amazing Struggles Episode 1, 28.8MB MP3 Link
Amazing Struggles Episode 2, 29MB MP3 Link
Amazing Struggles Episode 3, 29.4MB MP3 Link
Astonishing Failures Episode 1, 30.1MB MP3 Link
Astonishing Failures Episode 2, 31.2MB MP3 Link
Astonishing Failures Episode 3, 30MB MP3 Link

Nykkyo Kyhana is a native of a planet formed when a future Earth space mission fell into a black hole and emerged thousands of years in the past. He finds himself on present-day Earth, sent on a mission to gather plants for his people’s food and fibre supplies. There he befriends Sukiko, a lecturer at the university where he is assigned. As their friendship blossoms into a deep love, Nyk learns she is his own distant ancestor, as well as an ancestor to the man who founded his world. He realizes his love for her risks disrupting future events and jeopardizes his own existence and that of his people.

Nyk blames himself for such a disruption when Sukiko attempts suicide. After intervening to save her life, he decides he must disengage from her, to prevent further interference. But, by now it is too late. Events have been set into motion and Nyk is compelled to intervene again on her behalf — or face temporal annihilation.

Seen exclusively through the eyes of a visitor from another world, Earthbound unfolds as Nyk’s journey of discovery, as he learns of his past, his purpose and finds the love of his life.

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