George Allen Miller One Geek's take on all things SciFi

Yes, that's right. A brand new beautiful CR48. Now I haven't used it yet, had to go into work after all, but i'm dying to give it a try. It oddly came with a very cool depiction on the front of the box which had me perplexed as to what it was. After realizing I started shouting that I actually got one. I haven't been posting for a while but you can expect to see some updates as I give this little baby a ride. First impressions are the laptop is SMALL and very light. I only got so far as to hold it up in the air and triumphantly yell "KAHN!!!" It was the only battle cry that came to mind. How did I get one you ask? I just filled out the form here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/cr48advanced/ Give it a try, you never know!

Here we are, six episodes into NBC's The Event and asking ourselves, is it the next Lost? I can say with complete confidence, absolutely not. First of all, we still have to sit through these nutty flash backs. Sure, it's what made Lost work so well, but they did it intelligently. Each flashback told a story about the character that was separate from what was happening right now. It was background story, not clues to what was going on. The Flashbacks were measured in years, not in days, and that's why they worked. Also, and the biggest issue I have, we pretty much know whats going on with The Event after six episodes. We STILL don't know what the hell was going on with Lost and it was six seasons! They pealed their onion of mystery and each layer both answered the previous question while introducing a new one. On The Event, we know that aliens landed, they can make wormholes, they live a long time, and they want to go home. Ok, now what? That isn't to say the entire show should be shit-canned. There are some interesting ... More

With today being Halloween I think it would be remiss of me to not mention some Ghost Hunter goodness. An article came out yesterday about how real-life ghost hunters absolutely hate "Ghost Hunters". I posted an article here once about JB Rhine and his work with ESP and the paranormal. In a nut shell his results did show that there was something going on that was more than just random chance. JB Rhine never once went into a deserted house and asked "Is anyone here", "Tell me your name", "OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT". Not once. Why? Because he's an actual scientist exploring several fringe topics like ESP and the paranormal. He's not a plumber that thinks when someone goes bump in the night it's a demon, residual haunting or some other bullshit definition that they plucked out of the air. What's really sad is that all this attention by these charlatans will simply take away from any real movement or research into this field. As the Salon article will point out, many real life parapsychologists are being cut out of speaking engagements ... More

I can't describe how much I enjoy watching Ian McShane. I just Netflixed the entire mini-series of Ken Follett's Pillars of Earth on 'watch instantly' and loved it. One thing that I really get as a take away from this show, though I didn't read the book, is that you really can have a fantasy novel that is fun and interesting and deep without the dragons and magic. Not that I'm saying that stuff is bad but you can make it work without it. And on another note, why is Ian McShane such a diabolically great actor? That is one thing that this show left me thinking. All I want is more Ian McShane. His way of portraying his character is one that just leaves you envying him and routing for the bad guy. Ian has, of course, done that before in the portrayal of Al Swearengen and more recently as King Silas Benjamin. His way of making his characters both evil and good are memorizing. Al Swearengen once tried to have a little girl killed for god's sake. And yet, by the end ... More

Wired.com recently posted an interview with Patrick Di Justo, one of their own, about his new book explaining the science of Battlestar. Neat, right? I haven't read it yet but I'll probably do a kindle purchase soon to check out. Though, maybe not. One thing I've never really liked is trying to explain the science in a science fiction story. Any science fiction has to take a few leaps and honestly trying to explain it dispels some of the fun. But I don't want to be a prude about it, it's all in good fun. One thing I hope the book answers, why were there only 13 colonies? Seems like there were 13 colonies for about 2000 years? Did they always have FTL travel? It sounds like they did, I mean the escaped Cobolt. So, why did they stop at 13 planets? They are humans right? Why not keep going? Find other planets? This is kinda my pet peeve with BSG. It would be really hard to totally annihilate a species that could travel faster than light. I mean totally annihilate in a matter of minutes. ... More