Your new genes won’t be denim
Science news is an endless drumbeat of “on the verge” when it comes to gene therapy. It’s almost become background noise by now. In and of itself, the potential applications are as amazing as the promise that we're getting closer every day. AIDS, MS, blindness,...
Wizarding Real Estate
Fantasy stories take us to wondrous places, whisking us off to the impossible, the breathtaking, occasionally the terrifying. Crystalline forests, volcanic islands, floating continents, cities of twisting spires and perilous bridges; the list is nigh endless.It seems,...
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Sequel
When I first heard that there was going to be a third movie in the Bill & Ted “franchise,” I cringed. Hollywood has been awash for years in the lazy, bottom-feeding nostalgia that dredged up Willy Wonka, Point Break, and every attempt to adapt the Fantastic...
A License to Spoof
When Author Scrapheap comes around, you’re often subjected to half-baked or off-kilter ideas that had little hope of turning into anything worthwhile. Well, this entry into the list is the end-all, be-all of poor ideas.FOOPS.It’s just “spoof,” backward. It only gets...
The best of games / The worst of games
I don’t feel like I’m doing it a disservice to call Dwarf Fortress the game with the worst user interface in the history of successful games. Especially now that it’s getting an overhaul as its creator, Tarn Adams, readies it for a Steam release, it’s OK to look at...
Vacation in Space?
Captain Kirk has now actually gone to space. Well, there’s some debate these days over what qualified as “space” for the purposes of quickie up-and-down visits, but the idea is there. While I’d personally set the benchmark as achieving orbit (i.e. needing additional...
For the Horde!
I played World of Warcraft waaaaaay back in the day, back when there didn’t need to be suffixed qualifiers to explain what type of World of Warcraft you were playing. Before that, I’d enjoyed Blizzard’s real-time strategy (RTS) games...
Where we’re going, we don’t need tables
When I was a kid, there was a set of shelves in our basement stacked with board games. Monopoly, Sorry!, Clue, all the old classics. I’d play with my parents, friends, whoever I could rope into sitting at a table (or on the floor) with me. I liked video...
Year 8 of my 5-10 Year Plan for Overnight Success
My expectation going into 2020 was that it would be a year dominated by an exhausting number of hindsight jokes. In hindsight, I wish it had been. For those who don’t keep track, this January marks the 8th anniversary of Firehurler’s publication and the end of...
It Used to Come in the Mail
2007... Fox was still trying to make Fantastic Four movies, the iPhone had been announced and was a year from stores, the Oklahoma City Thunder was still the Seattle Supersonics, and Netflix had just launched a new feature called Watch Now. Today, we call...