I happened on clerk dogs, a new movie recommender, the other day. They are still in beta and are missing data in many key areas of film, but they are definitely worth checking out. Like Pandora, clerk dogs uses human editors to classify movies along several dimensions. Indeed, the founder Stuart Skorman (also founder of [...]
Posts Tagged ‘sci-fi’
clerk dogs
Posted: 18 December 2008 in UncategorizedTags: brazil, clerk dogs, dark comedy, jinni, movie genome project, movie recommendations, movies, netflix, recommender systems, sci-fi
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Rest in peace, Michael Crichton
Posted: 5 November 2008 in UncategorizedTags: books, cynicism, environmentalism, global warming, michael crichton, morality, sci-fi
Michael Crichton died yesterday of cancer at age 66. Crichton was a favorite while I was growing up and was probably a big influence in my decision to pursue science as a career. I blazed through The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Eaters of the Dead, Prey, and others. I thought Prey was pretty cool in [...]
An afternoon in Seattle
Posted: 10 August 2008 in UncategorizedTags: books, homeless, sci-fi, seattle, space needle, spaceman blues
I got to spend much less time in Seattle than I did in Boston, though I did manage to walk around the city a bit. I visited Pike Street Market, which looked like it would have been awesome if I could have gotten there much earlier. In the evening when I got there, things were [...]
Steampunk Death Star
Posted: 30 March 2008 in UncategorizedTags: death star, movies, sci-fi, star wars, steampunk
Just stumbled on this really cool site if you like steampunk and Star Wars. Being a huge fan of both, I recommend checking it out. If you’re a Star Wars purist, avoiding it might be healthier. The reimagining of Jabba the Hut and the Death Star are the best imo.
Precogs
Posted: 17 March 2008 in UncategorizedTags: books, dune, future, jessica biel, julianne moore, movies, next, nicolas cage, philip k dick, pkd, precognition, precogs, sci-fi, super powers, time
I just watched Next starring Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel. Oh and Julianne Moore. I liked it a lot, mainly because it brought together a slew of my favorite elements: people who can see the future (precogs) and nuclear explosions. And other explosions. Plus it was based on a short story by one of my [...]
Ants are awesome
Posted: 17 March 2008 in UncategorizedTags: ant colonies, ants, books, city, clifford d simak, emergent behavior, sci-fi
Researchers in the video below filled an ant colony with concrete and dug it out to see just how exactly the colony was organized underground. The results are just plain awesome. Ants farm fungus and use livestock (aphids), build cities and wage wars. What the video refers to as a hive consciousness is emergent behavior: [...]
The Clonus Horror
Posted: 23 January 2008 in UncategorizedTags: clones, cloning, clonus horror, ewan mcgregor, island, movies, mst3k, plagiarism, scarlett johansson, sci-fi
A short while ago, I wrote about the movie The Island starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The studio was sued by the makers of Parts: the Clonus Horror for copyright infringement. A judge agreed that the case could proceed to court, at which point it was settled for a rumored 7-figure amount. Netflix, in [...]
Cloverfield
Posted: 21 January 2008 in UncategorizedTags: cloverfield, i am legend, movies, new york, sci-fi
I just got back from watching Cloverfield. There are very few movies so interesting to me that I will actually go by myself to see them. I had tried to get a friend to come along, but he complained of “homework” and other such nonsense, and Donna can’t handle anything with monsters in it. Without [...]
