Category Archives: Art

Commissioned Artwork: Terraforming Venus 2523

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Alex R. Howe

I published this art piece on YouTube, Twitter earlier today. You can watch the video here. I’ve reproduced the transcript in this post, along with a few extra notes. Video Transcript (with notes) One year ago, I published a paper[1] … Continue reading →

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The Shadow of the Conqueror Film Project

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Alex R. Howe

Last year, I reviewed Shadow of the Conqueror, the debut fantasy novel of medieval enthusiast Shad Brooks, also known as Shadiversity. I thought it was pretty good—a little rough around the edges, but with a lot of potential. Well, it … Continue reading →

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Elon Musk’s BFR Update and Yusaku Maezawa, the First Lunar Tourist

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Alex R. Howe

Last night, Galactic President CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk gave an update on his big future projects, the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), BFS (which he says he needs to rename), and his planned tourist flight around the Moon. Video here. … Continue reading →

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Harry Potter and the Power of the Internet

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Alex R. Howe

A couple weeks ago, I reviewed a work of fan fiction called Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I wanted to make one more point about this piece, not about the story itself, but about how … Continue reading →

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Review: xkcd TimeAfterTime

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Alex R. Howe

A year ago, I highlighted a unique new style of story telling from the xkcd webcomic entitled Time. Somewhere between a comic strip and a movie, this story displayed one new black-and-white frame, usually pretty closely associated with the previous one, every … Continue reading →

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The new Cosmos series premiers!

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Alex R. Howe

In 1980, the great astronomer and popular science figure Carl Sagan (top) premiered the acclaimed PBS series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which introduced millions of people to the wonders of the universe for the first time. It remained the most … Continue reading →

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xkcd’s Time: good science fiction in a new medium

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

For the past four months, perhaps the most unique work of science fiction I have ever personally seen has been playing out over at xkcd: Time. If you don’t know about the xkcd webcomics, you should check them out. They … Continue reading →

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Why Hollywood has it wrong

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

I’ve mentioned before how Hollywood movies suffer from a dearth of originality and how the quality control system in the industry is breaking down. But the biggest problem in this “year of the sequel” is not that there are so … Continue reading →

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Quality control, part 3: the arts

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

This is final post in my series on quality control. Click the links to see part 1 and part 2. The Internet gives everyone a voice. It either has become or is becoming our library, our newspaper, our encyclopedia, our … Continue reading →

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