The Philippine Online Chronicles

Local News:

• Oldest Balete Tree in Baler - The balete tree has ties to a good many of our mythological creatures, and looking at this ancient example of the species, through photographs shared by Trese writer Budjette Tan at his Trese blog, it’s not hard to see why.
• “Shrek Forever After” Contest: The New Worlds Alliance is running a contest to tie in with the new Shrek movie, all you need to do is be a registered user and answer a few questions. Prizes include the official movie story book as well as t-shirts, bookmarks and more. Entries accepted until June 5.

Speculative Fiction:

• Oil Spill vs Waterworld: The gulf oil spill is a major environmental disaster, but I’d never thought that one of the possible solutions might come from a project spearheaded by actor Kevin Costner, who apparently poured a lot of money into research involving water filtering following his Waterworld movie. If his machines work, I propose that we all watch Waterworld again in his honor. Yes, I know, but the enormity of our sacrifice must equal the enormity of his contribution.

• Nebula Awards 2009: The winners of the prestigious Nebula Awards were announced last week--this is a link to the list on SF Signal, which also points you in the direction of in-house reviews and/or online text/audio versions of the winners. The Sofanauts roundtable podcast also has a new episode out (finally!) where Cheryl Morgan and Jonathan Strahan discuss the awards, and the conversation was very frank and informative, so if the awards interest you, give the podcast a listen.
• Racism in Science Fiction: The World SF News Blog has posted a link to an article at the New York Review of Science Fiction which reprints author Samuel Delany’s article on “Racism in Science Fiction.” Something to read along with Fidelis Tan’s overview of the RaceFail issue perhaps.
• The Elements of a Superhero: Even those of us who aren’t in love with the science of chemistry will have to admit that there is a certain beauty to the periodic table of elements and the way it seems to impose a rigid order on the substance of the material universe. That’s probably why the form has been repurposed so many times to organize other phenomena, and Chris Sims’ periodic table for superhero powers (which was brought to my attention by Bleeding Cool) is one of the best.
• Puffin’s Seventy Best Books for Children: In celebration of its seventieth anniversary, venerable children’s book publisher Puffin has released a free ebook, the “Puffin Handbook”, which includes a list of around seventy recommended books (from Puffin’s own stable of authors of course--don’t expect Harry Potter to pop up), grouped according to several themes (which range from “animals in action” to books by Roald Dahl). Speculative fiction stories are well represented in the list, which is why it merits a mention here.
• CMX Manga Closes Down: One publisher which will, sadly, no longer produce any books--for children or otherwise--is CMX, the manga imprint of DC Comics, as DC is shutting it down as of July 1. Japanator has a list of the final titles from the imprint, and good news for fans of Megatokyo.

Fantastic Movies:

• First Megamind Trailer: I have to admit, the only evil-mastermind-CG-movie that on my radar as of last week was “Despicable Me” but after watching the trailer for Dreamworks’ own take on that subject, I have to add Megamind to my must-see list. With Will Farell, Brad Pitt and Tina Fey (gotta love how jaded her female reporter has become with regard to death traps) as voice actors, and given how impressed I was by the 3D animation for “How to Train Your Dragon”, I think the studio has another winner on its hands.
• Megan Fox is off Transformers: Wait, wasn’t everybody watching those movies for the robots? No? Frankly, Megan Fox getting the boot for the next Transformers movie isn’t that surprising, as io9 affirms by reminding us of the things Fox previously said about the franchise. The io9 article also gives a breakdown of possible replacements for Fox, but, speaking for myself, the concept wasn’t enough to draw me to watch the second movie so it’d take something pretty drastic to make me watch the third.

Strange Science:

• Where are the Terminators? : While we’re on the topic of robots and expectations, one of the most familiar tropes of science fiction is the killer robot/ robot overlord. It seemed reasonable to expect mankind to someday create a computer that would rival--if not surpass--our own intellect. Yet, despite the great advances in computer power, most of the robots we’ve created seem, well, pretty unintellingent. Discover Magazine interviewed four robot experts--an expert in rescue robots, a robot designer, a scholar of robot-child interaction, and the creator of the Roomba--for an update on the status of the robot revolution. (Of course, we could always give up on robots and just shift to synthetic life forms right?)
• Debating the Singularity: Speaking of highly intelligent computers, Accelerating Future points to a video debate between two members of the academic community on the topic of the limits of intelligence and the idea of the Singularity. Accelerating Future provides a helpful topic index which approximates when certain topics are discussed in the video.
• The Galactus-star: While there is some debate as to whether or not the Singularity would prove disastrous to humanity, I think we’re all in agreement that if our sun becomes anything similar to the WASP-12 yellow dwarf star, which is currently busy eating one of its planets, we’re all doomed--unless the sun has a silver harbinger and we toss four hapless souls into space to get drenched in cosmic rays. Of course, if it was Galacta who was arriving, I’d be much less worried.