New Captain America The Winter Soldier Trailer: Metal Arm Solid

If you had even the faintest doubts that Marvel’s followup to Captain America would be anything but a series of kickass fights and flying ships going boom, well, be at ease. The new trailer is here, and it looks incredible. It’s exciting to get a better look at Falcon, whose equipment looks badass however implausible,…

Amazing Spider-Man 2 trailer is absolutely stunning.

If you weren’t excited for Marc Webb’s sequel to Amazing Spider-Man, this trailer could change your mind fast. Watch what is basically the whole opening act for the second Spider-Man movie. This trailer has everything we love about Webb’s reinvention of the Spider-Man franchise: hilarious quips, sick action, and red-hot chemistry between Gwen and Peter…

The Aurorae Blaze Bright Before the Dawn

There are times when, if near this planet’s poles, one scarcely needs her lantern to see. Above: “Southern Lights,” by the inimitable Julie Dillon. See more of her work on her tumblr and DeviantART page.

Optimus Prime is riding a DINOSAUR in new Transformers 4 trailer

Watch the first real trailer for Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction. Which is almost entirely in slow motion. Starring Mark Wahlberg and absolutely nobody from the first three Transformers films, this movie serves up a whole new crop of gun shooting robots for you to ogle. And yes Optimus Prime is riding a transforming…

How Are You Watching the Super Bowl?

Many of us will probably be watching today’s game the way it was meant to be enjoyed: On an old-fashioned television with a bucket of hot wings in our laps. But this is the third Super Bowl that doesn’t require cord cutters to bum a seat on our friend’s nasty ass couch. What’s your plan?…

Free Sgt. Star: Army Ignores FOIA Request for Artificial Intelligence Records

Sgt. Star is a 6-foot-1, clean-shaven, strong-jawed white male, with eyes that match the camouflage pattern on his combat uniform. His voice is deep, authoritative and carefully enunciative. He seems to be in his 30s, but he is actually only about 7 years old. Sgt. Star is not a real person, or at least not…

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Trailer Shows Hot Villain Action

The Winter Soldier emerges in this brand new Captain America 2 trailer. Lots, and lots of Winter Soldier action to behold, including a brief look at how he came to be. Plus Brubaker cameo! Check it out. What do you think? Sebastian Stan looks amazing (as does his mechanical arm). But I’m not sure about…

A Trove of Great Science Fiction and Fantasy – Free for a Limited Time

The 2014 Campbellian Anthology – a DRM-free ebook featuring the work of over 100 authors eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in science fiction and fantasy – is currently available for download. 860,000 words of fiction. For free (for now). Go grab it. Here’s an introduction from anthology curator M.…

Infographic shows the most common problems in screenplays

Last year, a scriptreader read 300 scripts for 5 studios, all the while taking notes on the problems and trends he saw. The number 1 problem? The story started too late in the script. The scriptreader listed 37 frequently occurring problems, here are the top 20: The story begins too late in the script The…

Read an anthropologist’s paper about the rituals of 1950s Americans

In the 1950s, Horace Miner became annoyed at the tone taken by anthropologists. They seemed to patronize and distance themselves from the culture they claimed to study. He decided to act on that annoyance by writing a paper on the tribe of the Nacirema – the American. I remember a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a…

Artist perfectly captures genderswapped Disney princesses

Animation student Miyuli decided to spend some time re-designing Disney princesses as their opposite gender. Now what needs to happen is a team up between these and the princesses in their princes’ clothes. Come on, Internet! I have to say, I love the sassy male version of Megara and Jasmin’s counterpart with Rajah. See the…

Why Dungeons & Dragons Still Matters

Dungeons and Dragons – arguably the single most revolutionary turn to the Action/Fantasy RPG genre – turned 40 last week. Here’s why it’s still relevant today. In a must-read post over at Boing Boing, Ethan Gilsdorf – author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks – looks back on the last forty years of pen-and-paper role-playing…

With Regard to the Footballs

One of the top comments on yesterday’s post about a picture of Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen all geared up for the Super Bowl came from NGEFAN, who wrote: “I’ve never understood the dislike/indifference towards American football and sports in general that people have on here.” On that point, I’d like to clarify something.…

Big Ass Spider! Delivers Big Ass Fun

Big Ass Spider! is a special effects-driven bigsploitation/assploitation/spidsploitation action adventure comedy extravaganza written by Gregory Gieras, directed by Mike Mendez and starring Greg Grunberg (Heroes) as lonely-heart pest exterminator and savior of mankind, Alex Mathis. The film opens with Alex going to the emergency room for treatment after suffering a bite from an ordinary, small…

LEGO Gets Told Off by a Seven-Year-Old Girl

A seven-year-old girl named Charlotte has taken LEGO to task for not only making more “boy people” than “lego girls,” but sending the former on adventures while the latter “sit at home.” “All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs,” writes Charlotte, “but the…

J.K. Rowling says Hermione should have married Harry, not Ron

Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. In an interview with Emma Watson, J.K. Rowling has admitted that she regrets pairing Hermione with Ron instead of Harry, chalking the Hermione/Ron marriage up to “a form of wish fulfillment.” The interview is slated to appear in a forthcoming issue of Wonderland magazine, for…

In memory of the men and women who lost their lives in the quest for space exploration. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden participates in a wreath laying ceremony as part of NASA’s Day of Remembrance, Friday, Jan. 31, 2014, at Arlington National Cemetery. Photo Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Neil Gaiman reading Green Eggs and Ham is pure wonderfulness

This video of Gaiman reading Dr. Seuss’s iconic children’s book, just posted to his blog, is one of the best things we’ve seen all week. Gaiman read the book in recognition of the Worldbuilders 2014 charity – a philanthropic effort orchestrated by epic fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss and founded on the premise of “geeks doing…

How Typography Set 2001: A Space Odyssey in the Sci-Fi Future

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is visually stunning. And the closer you examine, the more exquisite details you’ll find. That’s what Dave Addey has done in his in-depth, scene-by-scene examination of how this cinema masterpiece used typography to create a familiar yet still distant future. Dave’s new blog, Typeset In the Future, is dedicated…

It’s hallucination time on Helix!

Finally the good guys are figuring stuff out on Helix, and in last night’s episode we got a pulse-pounding dose of real action. Also, a Futurama reference. Spoilers ahead! Alan Is On the Case! At last Alan has stopped mooning over Peter for long enough to actually figure some crap out. Like, you know, how…