I find it somewhat hilarious to go back and read earlier William Gibson stuff where all this high technology is being used, but all these people are constantly having to find someplace to plug their computer in to get on the internet.

Rocky is such a powerful movie. I like the franchise, but things got pretty silly in the sequels (and Adrian is a horribly inconsistent character movie to movie). The original gives you that real sense of desperation. There are no villains other than, well, poverty. (And Paulie. He’s just plain awful.)

Only tangentially related to rail guns, but fun to talk about: Have you seen any of the coin shrinking setups people do when they like playing with high voltage in their lab? It’s basically the same as a rail gun, except that if you block the coin’s exit then it gets crushed instead of becoming a projectile.

Mike Pondsmith, who designed Cyberpunk 2013/2020/3.0, is on the team in a consulting capacity. And my understanding is they’re going straight on with his canon timeline from Cyberpunk 2020 onward.

This game is actually based on 2020, although I have no idea how much of that is actually going to make it in here.

The original edition was Cyberpunk 2013, and I wish they’d rolled with that and made it a fully Zeerust future, with crude servo-driven cybernetic limbs and brain-to-computer hookups but no mobile phones.

Just came down to say I was really hoping that there would be a mention of Gerald Bull. The guy was basically a real-life mad scientist—he was a convicted international arms dealer that was building a device literally called a “supergun” for Saddam Hussein, before being murdered under mysterious circumstances.

Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier did just that in 1899. They shot him from a mega-cannon right into the moon.. But unfortunately the giant moon-man had his mouth open and swallowed him whole.

Better Call Oleg.

I’ve always thought the idea of a massive railgun/catapult that fires materials into space to be the best. Whether that’s because it’s one of the more practical alternatives, or because building a giant gun that shoots things into space just sounds badass, I could not tell you.

I think there was an HBO movie about that guy, wasn’t there?

Also not to be confused with Absolut Iguana, possibly the least successful flavoured vodka of all time.

Having being brought up Catholic and reading so many stories infused with that, I found them a welcome antidote. I don’t feel like Pullman had to grossly overexaggerate when showing the evil the church did to survive.

Not to speak for the man, but I think he takes a lot of umbrage at the Christian propaganda aspect of the Narnia books. He’s also written in the past about “the problem of Susan,” i.e. the idea that Lewis punishes one of his female characters for daring to grow up by condemning her to eternal damnation.

I guess that’s partly why I loved it. As a kid I got The Golden Compass from an aunt who said I’d love it because she saw me reading Narnia once, but I pretty much loathed that book back then. I was less than enthused as I found the story never going where I wanted it to go, and the universe never really feeling…

Just FYI, if you use the option for an Amazon code (or one of the other non-cash options), you get the full amount.

I’ve heard the dwarves aren’t nearly as murderous that time of year.

...which, on reflection, means that the resurrection would have been Car Jesus repairing himself spontaneously, which means... that Car Jesus is Christine.

Or be written by Alan Dean Foster.

In my head canon, the book of Eli was a Tekwar novel.