Hey keen writers, fancy a bit of productive procrastination amid your midterm readings? New Zealand’s most distinguished short story competition for both aspiring and established writers is back for its 55th year! Accepting submissions until 30 June, gives you 1 week to fire up your brains or rewrite an old gem — Preferably in your own words:
E N T R Y C A T E G O R I E S
BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award category — Enter now
The main award category – $10,000 prize money Minimum length 1,000 words – maximum length 5,000 words
For writers who are at secondary school – $1,500 for the student and $2000 for the winner’s school Minimum length 750 words – maximum length 2,000 words
BNZ Short Short Story Award category — Submit your entry via Facebook
A short story of a maximum of 150 words – $500 prize money.
An amusing picture of an anti-drug propaganda pencil whose message is subverted simply by sharpening it, comes with an amusing real life story too, albeit from 1998. I thought these misdirected pencils were novelty stationary items at first, but nope, this was unintentional and batches were sent out to a number of elementary schools in the United States. It was only after a child noticed the problem that a product recall was actioned. The irony being, the pencils came from the Bureau for At-Risk Youth… EEK
As a result of the discovery by Kodi Mosier, a 10-year-old student at Ticonderoga Elementary School, … the Bureau for At-Risk Youth, … recalled the pencils. … A new batch of pencils will have the message written in the opposite direction, so when they are sharpened, they will read “Too Cool To Do” and finally “Too Cool.”
I guess the material Marvel was producing in 1961 was the right amount of hardcore for a then 12-year-old George R. Martin, hence his praiseworthy letter to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby about FANTASTIC FOUR #17:
However you interpret his words — as sarcastic or genuine glee, — it is just cool to know that the man responsible for the highly popular fantasy novel and television series, A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE/GAME OF THRONES, had origins as a total geek, and an enthusiastic and well articulated one at that. The comic in question, FANTASTIC FOUR #17, was a classic Doctor Doom tale that’s now worth hundreds of dollars:
It didn’t stop there either; George R.R. Martin wrote into Stan Lee a second time in 1964 about AVENGERS #9:
Neato! By George! I wonder if the two have ever met?
In 2012, physicist Harold White announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a hypothetical faster-than-light spaceship. He stunned the aeronautics world back then with his theoretical findings on advanced propulsion, and has done so again with the unveiling of new 3D renders of the concept ship:
What a beauty. These images were rendered by digital artist Mark Rademaker with artwork and inputs from graphic designer Mike Okuda (who are not surprisingly, STAR TREK aficionados). Sleek and awesome design with components described with such exciting terminology. Pretty neat stuff NASA, but please don’t tear open any terrestrial wormholes while generating your negative vacuum energy experiments. Real-world proof-of-concept is great but not at the expense of getting eaten alive by telekinetic aliens, thank you very much. 😛 I like how you read that and knew I was joking. I just think it’s unfortunate that many people wont see the same improbability in these awesome pictures.
Cool images and cool ideas being discussed by some of the world’s smartest minds is a wonderful thing, but the key word from any article on the topic of faster-than-light-travel should be the words ‘hypothetical’ and ‘theoretical.’ I love science fiction, but I don’t use it to sugarcoat my expectations of reality. I love ideas about the fabric of our universe for what they are, but I don’t believe anyone alive in this century will unlock the mysteries of space enough to traverse its unknown vastness; unless someone unbelievably clever develops a way to create atoms to fuel from thin air / light…
I have no idea about the mass of this ship, but being pragmatic; say a model of it weighs 500 kg and this is what we want to send through warp space, from my understanding (and I don’t understand much), the mass-energy equivalent of that 500 kg, requires 250 kg of antimatter combined with 250 kg of matter for the warp-bubble to happen, and the current cost of producing 1 gram of antimatter is close to $100 trillion! It would take the collective income of the world over 40 years to produce $2.5 quadrillion dollars worth of antimatter needed to turn this ship’s warp engine on. The word ‘feasible’ doesn’t quiet cut it. To clarify; when matter and antimatter collide, their mass is converted to kinetic energy in keeping with Einstein’s mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc2.
Whatever your thoughts are on interstellar travel, there is no denying that it is thanks to STAR TREK that the word “warp” is now practically synonymous with faster-than-light travel. Well played, science fiction, well played.
Second ship from the right — Matthew Jefferies’ 1960 concept of the ‘XCV-330 Enterprise’ “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979)
Cool pictures; 100%. Current, real-world probability; 1%. Sorry to be so negative. The positive side of this story however is that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration‘s findings are never for naught; and science fiction is fucking awesome!
Amazing season finale twists and cliffhangers with all that that implies: “I am your son. I have always been your son.” “The first men called us the children but we were born long before them.” “It’s customary to kneel when surrendering to a king.” “Valar Morghulis.”
Last year, my friend Ramari got me onto Sword Art Online, and now that season 4 of Game of Thrones has ended, this will have to carry the torch of my hunger for story:
Kirito will play the virtual-reality-massively-multiplayer-online game (VRMMO) called ‘Gun Gale Online’ (GGO) to investigate a series of murders that are linked with the assassination features of the game. He will meet Sinon along the way as she joins him on his mission to find the people responsible for the real life murders.
Synopsis: 1 year after the SAO incident, Kirito is approached by Seijiro Kikuoka from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Department “VR Division” with a rather peculiar request.
That was an investigation on the “Death Gun” incident that occurred in the gun and steel filled VRMMO called Gun Gale Online (GGO). “Players who are shot by a mysterious avatar with a jet black gun lose their lives even in the real world…” Failing to turn down Kikuoka’s bizarre request, Kirito logs in to GGO even though he is not completely convinced that the virtual world could physically affect the real world.
Kirito wanders in an unfamiliar world in order to gain any clues about the “Death Gun.” Then, a female sniper named Sinon who owns a gigantic “Hecate II” rifle extends Kirito a helping hand. With Sinon’s help, Kirito decides to enter the “Bullet of Bullets,” a large tournament to choose the most powerful gunner within the realm of GGO, in hopes to become the target of the “Death Gun” and make direct contact with the mysterious avatar.
Remember a while ago when Sola Rosa had an open castingcall for anyone keen to dance in their new music video; well here it is, the ‘fruits’ of their labour:
Director Jon Baxter / 3D Character Design Charles Cumming / Dancers Seantum Rapana, Matthew Moore, Jimmy Martin, Andrew Miller / Mocap Suite Colab AUT / Production Co-ordinator Hannah Walker.
[Offer ends on the 17th] FEZ is a 2D game set in a 3D world and is most definitely a benchmark in indie gaming, but more importantly, it is so much fun! Magical even. You should play it. It is truly amazeballs!
Gomez is a 2D creature living in a 2D world. Or is he? When the existence of a mysterious 3rd dimension is revealed to him, Gomez is sent out on a journey that will take him to the very end of time and space. Use your ability to navigate 3D structures from 4 distinct classic 2D perspectives.
FEZ is a 2012 puzzle platform game developed by indie developer Polytron Corporation and produced by Polytron, Trapdoor, and Microsoft Studios.
Extraordinary French artist, Gustave Doré and his detailed illustrations of visceral surreality will always find ways of reintroducing themselves time and again to an imagination eager world; such is the nature of a ‘legacy’ — an endless source of inspiration and the closest thing to immortality anyone can hope to achieve.
This promotional trailer for an art exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (National Museum of Modern Art) in Paris, is a terrific example of that legacy, creatively brought to life through the manifestation of stop-motion:
Music by Ödland “The Golden Mountain”
Here’s a brief 2minute documentary description of illustrator Gustave Doré, who the narrator describes as being; “the Steven Spielberg of his time”:
Experience the incredible angelic beings drawn by this celebrated 19th-century French artist.
The amount of detailing put into these vast scenarios of the imagination and anatomically correct (and incorrect) beings are so good and incomprehensibly epic, I really can’t imagine anyone ever emulating Gustave Doré’s level of proficiency; let alone imaging him working on them! Each one must have been incredibly time-consuming. I would love to own a book of Doré’s masterpieces; the computer screen is simply not good enough.
🎭 