- This is easily the oddest story I’ve read all day:
Saudi police say they are investigating a hoax that has seen people rushing to buy old-fashioned sewing machines for up to $50,000.
The Singer sewing machines are said to contain traces of red mercury, a substance that may not exist.
I’d never even heard of “red mercury” before this. [via]
- Speaking of William Gibson — I wasn’t, really, but that link above came from him — Maureen F. McHugh offers some thoughts on “Cyberspace” and how Gibson got it wrong, at least by our modern, now-real-world definition:
But more interesting to me is that Cyberspace was initially envisioned as a place you went into. It turns out it’s not that at all. Cyberspace is the organization of your experience when you are using a linked interface. So when you’re in your car, using your GPS, you’re in cyberspace, right there on the freeway. Using you smartphone to check Twitter, you’re in cyberspace. We don’t go to cyberspace, it comes to us. It overlays our world and our experience. It changes our perception of space and time.
This is equal parts neat and terrifying.
- I spent way too much time today immersed in the #badscifi thread on Twitter. But I also loved these alternate plot descriptions. My favorites are easily:
ALIENS: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.
DOCTOR WHO: Elderly man serially abducts young women.
TERMINATOR: An unplanned pregnancy leads to complications.
Obviously, plenty of these come with spoilers, so be forewarned. [via]
- Here’s something I’m wondering: If, as American Apparel is now claiming, Woody Allen’s reputation was so tarnished by sex scandal as to be worthless as an endorsement, why did they ever use it as such?
- There’s been a lot written about “AmazonFail” the past couple of days, but I think John Scalzi sums it up quite nicely: “…people rarely freak out in a moderate sort of way.”
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Okay, my new favorite “alternate plot description” is this one:
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL: British comedy troupe inadvertently creates language lab for nerds.