The book doesn't describe Luke's race explicitly, though I am sure many people would assume he is white as she describes her kid and there were no obvious racial signifiers there. (Lord knows I assumed Luke was white). That said the policies of Gilead as described in the books were racist, of course, and the…

I stand corrected!

If anyone hasn't mentioned it already, there was a shot of man-ass I recall in the Doctor Who episode with the 9th Doctor and our first naked Jack Harkness. It's a great scene where he says, "you don't want to know where I hid this gun."

There's all kinds of interesting issues Dr. Who has with companions. They are
almost universally women, and to me that has problems all its own. (The exceptions are notable Harry, Turlough, Adric, Jack Harkness, and Rory are the ones I can think of going back to the 70s, there's been one or two before that I think but…

I just started watching this now and of all the things so far in this episode is the use of Joy Division in the scene where Bill meets Heather.

So what would all you AV Clubbers suggest as a thoughtful documentary take on Playboy? I am curious if there is one.

True weird story: in my college library somoene razored out the pictures in the copies of Playboy. Very neat, leaving the text intact. Weird.

Salt is in fact the only rock we eat directly — all other minerals (copper, zinc, magnesium, calcium) are dissolved in other stuff. You can't get calcium from eating chalk or cuttlebone (well you could, but it's not very efficient for humans).

I wanted a satisfactory explanation for why Carrie, a writer, never seemed to worry about deadlines or invoices. I suspect if she thought about the latter more her financial problems would be less glaring.

Remember tho that it's Mars. That means biological material and volatiles (in the planetary sciences called CHON) would be like gold. Gold, in fact, would be near useless.

And apropos of sunlight, the UV flux on Mars would be greater on the surface (no ozone layer) but inside (and in a suit) it would be nonexistent. The spectrum of light that even humans need to produce vitamin D would have to be replicated somehow and it would be less intense (you just can't duplicate the power of real…

The fun part is that Tycho is spinning, right? So Amos when he puts his boots down is hanging "down" from his perspective — it's as though he is hanging off a building with his head "down." How long could you hang like a bat? And then basically close a valve while hanging from an infinite-story overhang?

Also @SaoMagnifico - the Cant situation was that the captain wasn't sure it was a real call, (I think he figured it was a dead ship?) if I remember right, and wasn't sure his ship could make it and still get their profit mission done, and wasn't interested in heroics. Bad all around, though one could make a legalistic…

The airlock scene was just… man, that was cold.

Or she could have been promoted. Editors don't get bylines for stories they edit.

Let's not forget the whole "ask me for permission to marry my daughter" thing which is something my parents wouldn't think appropriate.

There's a down side to his fast regeneration. What happens to you when your cells regenerate too fast? In a mild case you get psoriasis. (If you've never had it, your skin and scalp gets lesions that itch and look pretty awful, and it can spread in response to stress). In a bad case you get cancer. Cellular…

And to expand a bit on @disqus_rgB9BlxOS4:disqus — the issue is that you can't prove that you are conscious. You claim an "inner life" but you can't conclusively demonstrate that to anybody. It could be simulated with an arbitrarily sophisticated program, and there would be no material way to tell the difference. Even…

I was being a bit facetious — but yeah, a ship has to shed the velocity somehow and you can decelerate in the atmosphere or you can decelerate with an engine. (The total delta v is the same regardless). Red Mars' sequels, IIRC, posited low-acceleration ion engines at some point(?) that just kept on accelerating/…

Dnno about the game, but a ship has to accelerate and decelerate at the end of the trip, right? :-)