Maybe your professor was just a bad teacher?

That may explain Hyperion, and I don't know if it explains Transcendental or not, but it doesn't answer my question, since it doesn't explain the reference in Leviathan Wakes.

You may be right about the compressed timescale. But the Borg did kinda start sucking as soon as Hugh showed up, even though Hugh was an interesting character himself.

I keep reading this response over and over — I think it's putting too much emphasis on the fact that anything repeated (especially with a more complicated & examined backstory/mythology) becomes less frightening... for example every horror series ever (Jason, Psycho, Halloween, Nightmare, etc). This also happens to…

Absolutely. This is one of the best uses of mo-cap/CGI/greenscreen/all that. It's easy to complain about (and deservedly so) but then you think of Cumberbatch slithering around as a dragon, and every moment of Serkis's Smeagol/Gollum performance, and it's all worth it. It's bringing new levels of performance into…

"...and the rest of the things that aren’t dragonlike about me."

Yeah I heard "space opera" and "Canterbury Tales" and immediately thought Hyperion... but to be fair, this doesn't actually sound very similar.

You simply don't get cooler than Max Cool.

November 5, 1955.

This is so beautifully 80s sci-fi, I want one now please.

3-D printing is how Laika made the millions of individual faces for every different expression/frame of ParaNorman.

While I think that's validly a part of it — Sam Clemens shows up all the time because he's one of the biggest literary personalities that had at least as much personality as literary to him. The next biggest "personality" might be Oscar Wilde, but Twain would be more fun on an adventure (both are probably equally fun…

"gay romance time travel story about Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville."

Amendment to your theory re: Dickens — most people have not read A Christmas Carol (I hang out in a pretty casually-literary crowd and almost nobody I know has read that particular story), but they've all seen Mickey's A Christmas Carol or A Muppet Christmas Carol or the yearly sitcom rehash of A Christmas Carol and…

Well, the evolutionary ecologist in the article seems to disagree with you. "We found that the evolution of local adaptation to climate in purple loosestrife increased reproduction as much as or more than escaping natural enemies. Understanding that species can evolve rapidly to local climates is important for…

For years (decades at this point... jeez) Ben Stiller has had a complete mastery of the Tom Cruise Run. I first noticed in Night at the Museum, and later noticed it in other (earlier and subsequent) films that feature Ben Stiller running.

I love (/fear) this, but the actual stationery/form itself deserves a comment. Their motto and seeming mission statement is great!

Maybe so, but the Vlog Brothers (Hank and John Green; Hank is above) are pretty amazing, and the guy from Vsauce — for me at least — manages to stay just this side of irritating, and although I usually skip his Jerry Springer-esque wrap-ups, I almost always find his content fascinating.

My brain keeps trying to tell me that the photo is cute and even fairly sexy and then my brain reads about fart smells and immediately starts arguing with itself, is even disgusted with itself... and then looks back at the picture and ignores the article and thinks, well, you know, it's still cute and a little sexy...…

It's evolution because a species is adapting and changing to altered conditions of its environment (cause has nothing to do with anything) — and the changes which facilitate more efficient growth and reproduction dominate over multiple generations. A species of plant was one way. Now it's another way. How can you make…