Doom Stars, because Death Stars are for wimps

What's a Doom Star? This:

The big green ones.

Doom Stars are warships from the popular - and to be honest, epic as hell - computer game, Master of Orion II. Specifically, it's a planetoid-sized ship that, when armed with a stellar converter (or several, if you're sadistic), become the most powerful ships in the entire game. Really, though, the Doom Star is a Death Star knockoff, right down to the planet destroying uber weapon, the stellar converter. Hit the jump for a demonstration of the technological terror you can construct:

Another book finished

Fuzzy Nation is done! I'm going to start work on the non-reviews for it and The Clone Republic tonight. I absolutely recommend Fuzzy Nation, however. It is a must read.

Farewell, Neil Armstrong

As you might be hearing right now, Neil Armstrong has died. He was 82. He was also a hero. I don't mean an American hero, but a hero of mankind. When he set foot on the surface of the Moon, it wasn't as an American, it was as a human and for the benefit of his species. His family summed up the best way to remember and pay tribute to Armstrong:

For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.

I'm not going to lie, as soon as I found out that he died, I had tears in my eyes. Losing a hero is hard. I'm going to be very disappointed if there isn't a statue erected in his honor. Maybe rename Johnson Space Center to Armstrong Space Center?

Farewell, Mr. Armstrong.

Picture via Wikipedia.

SyFy's doing a Blake's 7 remake

And maybe this time, Blake will stick around for more than two seasons. There's also a Space: 1999 remake in the works by some other network, called Space: 2099. Seems like remaking old scifi shows is still in vogue. BSG, Star Trek, and V have all had remakes, though the latter was less than successful.

So, what old scifi show do you want to see remade?

h/t The Wertzone.

"It's called marriage, honey" New Doctor Who trailer!

River Song! Daleks! River Song! Weeping Angels! River Song! A little over a week to go, I can't wait.

Did I mention River Song?

h/t Nerdvana.

This ship from Terran Trade Authority looks vaguely familiar

You know, just vaguely. This was originally published in Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD in 1978, as part of the Terran Trade Authority book series. I wonder if Joss Whedon ever read those books?

Picture via cee-emily.

Best reason to donate to Hulks and Horrors' IndieGoGo fundraiser: Space Bears

Arguments are now invalid. But in all seriousness, Hulks and Horrors looks like a fun scifi RPG that has, inexplicably, not reached its goal of a meager $5,000. I say meager in the sense that compared to other fundraisers on both IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, $5,000 is a small sum. Currently, it's just barely past the halfway point, but only has 38 hours left before the fundraiser ends, so check it out and maybe donate? There's always room for a scifi RPG.

Do it for the space bears.

h/t EXONAUTS!.

Just finished The Clone Republic by Stephen L. Kent

Non-review coming soon. Like it, though.

RIP Harry Harrison

While I've never read his Stainless Steel Rat series, one of his standalone novels is quite famous. In 1966, he published a novel called Make Room! Make Room! which was the basis for the 1977 movie, Soylent Green.

(via SF Signal)

On the heels of that last post, more Who news!

The first episode of the new season, Asylum of the Daleks, airs on September 1st!

Depending on your feelings about Matt Smith, this will either be good news or the worst thing ever

But it looks like the Eleventh Doctor will be staying for quite a bit longer, through 2014 at least. As for the title, it's a poke at those Whovians who have never warmed up to Matt Smith taking over the role as the Doctor. Some just don't like his portrayal, others still hold a preference for Smith's predecessor, David Tennant. Then again, there were and probably still are people who didn't like Tennant when he took over from Christopher Eccleston. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there are still Whovians miffed over Patrick Troughton replacing William Hartnell.

I like Matt Smith and the Eleventh Doctor. I like the other ten incarnations as well. Those Whovians who still gripe over him just need to accept that Smith is the Doctor until he or Moffat decides that it's time for a Twelfth Incarnation. Speaking of the Twelfth Doctor, I'm hoping they cast a woman, as such Helen Mirren.

Awesome posts for popular TOS episodes

Saw these over at Geek Flag. The one for The Ultimate Computer is my favorite.

I'll admit that I haven't seen a lot of episodes of TOS - I was more of a TNG and DS9 man, myself - but The Ultimate Computer is an episode I really want to see. I've read the synopsis, so I know what goes down, but still, seeing several Constitution-classes in one ep? Yes please! Apparently the current four are just the first of a whole bunch of similar posters by Quantum Mechanix. - each episode is getting the treatment. You can check the rest out here.

What's your favorite episode of The Original Series? I like The City on the Edge of Forever.

NASA: Landing car-sized robots on other planets because they can

And amazingly, they did it with a meager annual budget of only $17 billion! No, really, NASA's budget this year was only 17.7 billion dollars. Seriously. Yet, using a small bit of that budget, they managed to put Curiosity on Mars. Imagine what they could do if they had more money? I tell you, if I were president, I'd fight tooth and nail to ensure NASA received a hundred billion dollars a year, or at least as close to it as possible. Of course, were I president, I'd also push for the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Science and Technology that would handle this kind of stuff. Neil DeGrasse Tyson would be the inaugural Secretary.

But no, NASA has to make due with a small budget because while we've put on a man on the Moon, we've lost the drive to do anything else. On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at Rice Stadium, a line from which has become famous:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

We chose to go to the Moon and we went several times, but when it came to do the other things, we lost our will, our enthusiasm for it. We look at the moon landings and decided "well, that's good enough." Well, it isn't and never was "good enough". We have two choices, not as a country, but as a people: Choice one, we content ourselves with small technological achievements, and stay on Earth and not do a damn thing more. Choice two, we get our act together, return to the Moon, go to Mars, colonize both, and journey to the stars. The first choice ends with oblivion, either from an asteroid, total ecological collapse, or our very sun burning out and destroying us. The second choice sees the human race fulfill its destiny as explorers, as pioneers, and uplifts us from hairless apes from a backwater planet to that of a great species.

Personally, I prefer the latter to the former. How about you?

100 posts!

Wooo! *throws some confetti* Par-tay! Okay, that pretty much blows the party budget. *ahem* So, here's a status report:

Hits: 5,945, over 2100 of which were from last month.
Followers: 23. I'm shocked.
Posts: According to Google Reader, about 5.1 a week. I'm going to try and ramp that up.

According to the stats, I've been received the most hits from TamsinP and Desert Scribe's blogs. The most popular post is the one about the Enterprise-F from Star Trek Online. The lion's share of my readership is from America and Chrome just narrowly edges out Firefox as the most used browser.

Now let's party like it's on sale for $19.99!

The Doctor is in - Doctor Who season 7 trailer

Originally posted at Giant-Size Nerd-Thing!.



Rory: "Who killed all the Daleks?"
Doctor: "Who do you think?"

Oooh, Eleven's got some darkness in him. The Doctor still blames himself for the way he ended the Time War and added The Master's sacrifice from "The End of Time" to his guilt trip. Absolutely can't wait until Fall when the new season finally premieres!