Star Wars nerds everywhere, be prepared to cream your Ewok boxer shorts. A Californian team has built, and flown (well, gotten airborne would be more precise) a working X-Wing!!
Don't believe me?
That is why you fail.
(Via Pharyngula)
See over the fold for previews of a fan-made edit of the Star Wars movies, in the style of Godfather II.
Read more!
From the archive at SciFi.com--well worth exploring.
The StareRead more!
by John Wyndham
"A most objectionable habit," declared the Major emphatically.
"I always say," ventured Rodgers, "that the only way to deal with a man who stares persistently is to stare back at him."
The Major looked at him unkindly.
"You would. And if he 'always says' the same thing, I suppose you continue to glare at one another for hours on end."
White joined in the conversation.
"It's not," he said, "the plain, straight-in-the-face stare which troubles me as much as the oblique method—I mean the kind of stare which looks firmly on to your tie or shoes and stays there. All I can do when I meet it is to wriggle unhappily and wonder whether anything has come adrift."
"Men don't like being stared at, but women don't like not being stared at," said Rodgers with the air of one making a contribution to philosophy.
· · · · ·
The Major groaned. "There can be few men with such a fund of generalizations, but this time I'm bound to admit that there's something in it."
"Undoubtedly most women prefer molestation to indifference," White agreed.
Berridge's lazy voice drifted into their talk.
"I know a number of women who don't care for being stared at, and one who can't stand it—in fact, she definitely hates it."
"Of course, there are exceptions," admitted the Major, "or we should be in the unthinkable position of having Rodgers always right. But you can hardly call this lady normal."
"Well, if you call hurt pride an abnormality—"
"Let's have the story," White suggested.
"It dates from an evening six or seven years ago.The place was New York, and her name is Mary," Berridge began in his quiet manner.
"She had been to the theatre and to supper with friends. Since her destination was not the same as theirs, she decided to go home alone on the subway—as they call the New York Underground.
"By day the subway is a mass of men and women all apparently ten minutes behind time, but late at night it echoes with a dreary desolation, and the trains seem to rattle and crash indecently through a world more than half dead."
· · · · ·
"Mary, her mind still full of an indigestible play, could preserve an indifference to the mere sordidness of her surroundings, but she did notice that there were depressingly few travellers scattered around the car she boarded. At each stop there followed a further depopulation until, four of five stations later, she realized suddenly that she was alone save for three men who sat facing her. The middle member of this trio was staring in a fixed manner.
"Now, though Mary was well used to stares and chose to take them as compliments, yet, on this occasion, she was not flattered. The starer was a flashy production, striped hat-band to chrome yellow shoes. His lips hung slightly apart and gave to his whole countenance an unattractive vacancy. But his eyes were piercing. Pupil and iris had combined into a bright blackness to glare out at her from vivid whites.
"Mary hummed a tuneless little tune and tried to find something interesting to look at, but her eyes were drawn back to the man opposite. She assumed a forbidding expression of indignation, which failed to have any effect. Her distaste began to give way to neutral discomfort—she felt somehow as though she were being mentally undressed. His eyes cut into her, and through her. Without a quiver they out-stared her."
· · · · ·
"The man's two companions seemed unaware of his rudeness. They sat beside him, each with an arm firmly linked in his, only turning to exchange an occasional word behind his unmoving head. Mary's decision to alight at the next station was postponed by the entry of a man and a woman, bringing her a new supply of courage. They sat down beside her, and the train continued; so did the stare.
"A minute or two later she became aware that the newcomer was addressing her.
"'Perhaps,' he suggested, 'you would like to look at the evening paper?'
"'Thank you,' she replied gratefully. It was a kind thought; a screen from the stare. Not until she raised it did she notice scrawled pencil marks across the columns. The writing was jerky by reason of the trains' motion, but with difficulty she managed to read:
"'I think you had better get out with us at the next stop.'
"She looked questioningly at her neighbour, and he gave a slight nod.
"There was apologetic explanation in his tone as they stood on the platform and watched the train recede.
"'I'm sorry if I alarmed you,' he said, 'but my reason was the man opposite to us. Did you notice him?'
"'Notice him? Why, the creature had been staring at me in a loathsome, horrible way ever since I got in.'
"The man looked at her and shook his head.
"'No, I'm afraid you are wrong there. You see, I'm a doctor, and I assure you that the man was not staring at you—as a matter of fact, he was stone dead.'"
Berridge paused for a moment, then he added:
"Such a wound in one's pride is hard to heal—Mary still feels a little foolish when anyone stares at her."
The End
"So what does the meat have in mind."A dialogue by Terry Bisson. From a series of stories entitled "Alien/Nation"Read more!
in the April [1991?] issue of Omni.
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the raido waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I 'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plamsa brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind."
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the reconds and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel theough C space. which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you sid it yourself, who want to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropiate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we can marked this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.
