WWWednesday: February 6, 2019

The Puppy Bowl:

Captain Marvel, 2014 (Image courtesy of The Comic Book Store)

The big game was on Sunday. For anyone who missed it, this year’s Puppy Bowl trophy went to Team Ruff. The score was 59-51 against the odds-on favorite, Team Fluff. Before you ask, I have no idea how they score this thing.

Books and Writing:

If you’re a big Robert Heinlein fan this notice of a “new” novel, an alternate version of Number of the Beast, will get your attention. The story is based on a 185,000 manuscript by Heinlein, which deviates at the end from the original published work.

We all love the story of a magical book hidden inside another book, preferably hidden in a library. In some cases, that story is true, like this fragment of a version of a King Arthur story, and its strange journey to discovery.

Nisi Shawl will be teaching a workshop at Fishtrap Gathering in July. First of all, this setting looks wonderful; secondly, Nisi Shawl!

The finalists for the Audie Awards (best audio books) have been announced. Some of our faves are on here.

In the It’s So Awkward Department; it’s so awkward when you plan to reform an organization from within, and then you make a bid to run for elected office of that organization… only you’re not a member.

Clearly The Binding has been released in Britain and may not be here yet. This is a review of a book that sounds intriguing.

The UK Guardian explores how fantasy written by women gets categorized –and shelved– in this short article.

The same paper, reviewing Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, says it’s so much fun to read it’s almost rude to point out the book’s flaws. (That’s never stopped any of us.)

Locus has issued its recommended reading list from 2018. (Thanks to Terry.)

TV and Movies:

Captain Marvel (Image courtesy of The Comic Book Store)

IO9 discusses the new trailer for The Avengers; Endgame, which dropped during the Superbowl.

I think everyone but me knew that there was a remake of Frank Herbert’s Dune on the horizon. I was prepared to scoff until I saw that Timothee Chalamet is signed on to play Paul. So far, the cast looks brilliant, at least in terms of talent.

Marvel also used the Superbowl to show off a new trailer for Captain Marvel. The visuals are great; frankly, I found the sound in this one off-putting.

Here’s a mini-fashion-shoot for Syfy’s Birds of Prey. I teetered between old-school feminist annoyance here (“Of course, it’s women, so fashion,”) and a sense of fun because the costumes look cool, and the sense of fun prevailed.

Internet:

Thanks to File770 for this short, strange little film by Tara Mercedes. It’s three and a half minutes long, roughly. I didn’t fully understand what was going on until the final few frames.

Science and Tech:

NPR has an interesting story about a mountain on Mars, and the smart way scientists on earth got to take a closer look at it.

Here is an interesting article on the FCC’s argument for voiding state net-neutrality laws and allowing providers to throttle clients (including public safety agencies like firefighters and emergency services operations). The case in Santa Clara, California, during last year’s wildfires figures prominently in the discussion.

I didn’t even read this entire article. I knew I was going to link to it because the title is so funny.

Google is deleting Google-Plus and considering it a failed experiment. If you use Google+, there are some specific directions in the article for saving your data, because Google plans to delete everything.

Earth:

In 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa took a whole bunch of tree seeds into space. When the mission returned home, the seeds sprouted by the US Forest Service and “moon trees” (they weren’t exactly moon trees but it sounds cool) were planted all over the USA. How are they doing? Well, not very well, but, to no one’s surprise, no worse than earth-bound trees. It’s a cool story.

This owl can see with its eyes closed.