Eh. I could care less about the clumsy moralizing. The acting was pretty good, the FX *really* good for how cheap they apparently were, and the story engaging enough to hold my interest. Plus: giant landtopuses! It had everything I like in a movie. Everything else was just filler as far as I'm concerned.

Were I a millionaire, I would purchase a small island and provide Swade with everything he needed to build and operate *several* Analytical Engines. I would then staff the island with as many people as I could, all of whom would agree to take part in a live recreation of Gibson's and Sterling's book.

I MUST own this!

@BoxOfScraps: I actually like the idea of a Singularity that creates all manner of chaos. Chaos is a fertile medium from which all manner of new, *possibly* better orders may eventually evolve! The idea of everything culminating in a bland, utilitarian cyberutopia is too boring to countenance.

Hmmmm...what you're talking about is not so much a technosingularity as a particular *kind* of technosingularity—the rosey-eyed Rapture of the Nerds as envisioned by Ray Kurzweil. Now, I've read Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near (and The Age of Spiritual Machines, AND The Age of Intelligent Machines) at least fifty…

I found Matter to be completely anticlimactic and pointless—but, indeed, it is the *only* Culture novel I didn't adore. I re-read Excession at least once a year just for the sheer pleasure of spending time amongst a bunch of Minds puzzling over a visitor from another universe. You can't really beat that.

OK. I gotta read this.

@DarthVegan: That is the best thing I've ever read.

"Could genetic enhancement inspire a kind of neo-eugenicist society where social classes are determined by access to the kind of wealth one needs to take advantage of such technologies?"

No, wait—the second one is clearly an avanc.

Dagon!

Sexy Optimus Prime. My brain just exploded.

I would've given anything to have a vampire girlfriend when I was thirteen. That said, I *really* liked this film, and found it just as interesting as the original.

YARBLES, not "garbles." Get yer slovos right!

Zarmina is a dumb name—but who cares? I'll volunteer to be a Zarminan settler!

Funk dat noise—started with Season 1, Episode 1. If that doesn't hook you...well, actually, it didn't hook me—I watched it when it debuted, then never watched another episode until a week or two ago, when I just went on a marathon and watched the first and second seasons almost nonstop. Walter Bishop is The Man(tm).

I love tidally-locked planets. Gloaming is a lovely named for a world, too.

O. M. G. It's like Independence Day raped Cloverfield and Starship Troopers delivered the baby!

Year Zero is by far Trent Reznor's best work. I cannot WAIT to see this!

I just watched this film as an iTunes download. Now, it cost Ten Freakin' Dollars just to *rent* it, and the quality of the film that downloaded was horrendous—so washed out and colourless it was almost unwatchable—but this is a GREAT film. Not a Giant Monster Movie at all, nor particularly deep—but as an exploration…