Bewarethewumpus

Author : Bob Newbell

Frejj glided two meters above the street of the marketplace, each pulsation of his gelatinous, umbrella-shaped body propelling him forward through the green chlorine atmosphere toward the cafe at the end of the street. Seeing his friend, Vallier, resting on a pedestal, he floated over to join him. Vallier held a stylus in one tentacle and a datapad in two others. He was obviously deep in thought.

“Writing?” asked Frejj.

“Writing,” confirmed Vallier.

Frejj signaled a servitor to request a flagon.

“Put that pad down. I’ve ordered us a libation.”

Vallier kept writing. “I’d like you to look this over when I’m done. I’m going to submit it to one of the lore journals.”

“I hope it’s not more of that silly science fiction of yours.”

“It’s not silly!” said Vallier louder than he’d intended. “It’s creative and imaginative. So much lore nowadays is derivative and repetitive. Speculative fiction is the new frontier in literature.”

The servitor delivered the flagon and two cups to the table. Frejj poured them both a drink. He drained his cup and poured himself another. “What’s it about anyway? Your story, I mean.”

“You’ve heard the news about radio transmissions from a star system in the Jebraze constellation possibly being from an alien intelligence? I’m writing a story on what the aliens might be like.”

Frejj had another drink. “That’ll turn out to be a false alarm. There are no habitable planets in that system.”

“They’ve determined the third planet is the origin of the transmissions. It’s mostly covered in water and the atmosphere is about one-fifth oxygen.”

Frejj put down his cup. “Nothing could survive in such an environment. Your story won’t get accepted for publication if no one finds it believable.”

“That’s where the transmission originated,” insisted Vallier. “Whatever creatures live there would have evolved to survive the amount of oxygen in the air.”

Frejj resumed drinking. “My advice is make the characters in your story like life on our planet. Make their mesoglea an odd color to make them seem ‘alien’ of something.”

“Who’s going to believe aliens that look like us?”

“The readers have to be able to relate to the characters.”

“The characters are from another planet. They’re not going to float around and have six eyes and look like ordinary people.”

“They’re not going to float about? How do you intended to have them move?”

“Maybe they slither on the ground or ambulate on specialized tentacles.”

“They couldn’t escape predators if they locomoted on the ground. They’d never survive long enough to develop into a technological civilization.”

Vallier floated off his pedestal momentarily with excitement and descended back down to rest on it. “That’s it!” he said with excitement. “The aliens are land-bound and easy prey for their world’s predators. At the same time, their planet’s poisonous oxygen atmosphere puts them in constant peril. Oxygen is highly reactive. I bet things would catch fire there really easily. They’d be a stoic, warrior race ever vigilant against their planet’s endless danger!” Vallier started writing frantically.

“How about a love interest?” asked Frejj. “A male, a female, and a gestator are thrown together by circumstances and a romance develops.”

“Readers want action and adventure, not mating dances.”

“And what happens when we get a radio transmission with video from the aliens? What happens when we know what they look like and what their civilization is like?”

Vallier stopped writing. He looked worried for a moment. Then he brightened and said, “Shape-shifters! I can address that problem by making them shape-shifters!” he said triumphantly.

Author : James Langley

Dr. Livett tapped at the graphene strap around her wrist and the beachside illusion dissolved into nothing. She stood in the sterile, empty white room; the fragrant ocean breeze replaced by the smarting odour of bleach. She redressed into her uniform, the white pyrowool jumpsuit that clung tighter than a leotard, and with a few taps of the graphene strap a wall panel opened with a pneumatic hiss. The metal tray slid out and floated into the center of the room, the Nuclea-Ion energy field holding it in static levitation. On the tray lay the corpse.

Liren Smith, found dead at his apartment, was a retired caretaker for the international electronics company GlobeTech; renowned for its robotics, Nuclea-Ion Energy discovery and subject of countless conspiracies.

Starting her autopsy, Dr. Livett swiped fingers across her wrist strap and GlobeTech robotic arms folded out from the ceiling and, under her instruction, began the internal examination. The Y-shaped incision was cleaved across the chest and down the abdomen, the skin folded back before Nuclea-Ion lasers made short work of the ribs and breast plate. The robotics operated with mechanical precision and computerized routine as coronary arteries were pulled and spliced into Dr. Livett’s view. A heart attack was quickly confirmed as the cause of death, the autopsy room’s inbuilt surveillance system recorded the proceedings for future reference.

It was here she found it, the wire. The small strand of synthetic copper barely protruding from the ventricle’s tissue. There was no reports of Mr. Smith ever having a pacemaker so she investigated further. For over an hour she scraped away the muscular tissue, her intrigue falling away to concern as she discovered the entire organ was moulded around an intensive network of wires and electronics. She performed an intensive database search but found no medical technology that could explain the findings.

She tapped her wrist strap and the surveillance system shut down; her mechanical assistants slid out of sight. She retrieved her own instruments and continued the examination manually, feeling sweat prickling her brow. The liver and lungs presented as identical electrical structures and the lenses in the eyes were of quartz glass. She summoned a microscope and began checking tissue samples; the skin and muscles were void of organic cells and Liren Smith’s ersatz blood bore no trace of erythrocytes.

Dr Livett stepped back and steadied herself.

“Its not human,” she whispered to no one in particular, more a statement to confirm her own assumptions. Did anyone know about this? Was she supposed to know about this?

She started as the intercom buzzed and her superior’s voice filled the room

“Dr Manning, you have disabled the electronic and surveillance systems.”

“Yes, sir” she replied out loud, her voice trembling through a parched mouth, “I’m tired and thought I could concentrate better if I conducted the examination myself.”

“Yes, well GlobeTech is aware of this and is not pleased. They have a representative here to question you. He’s on his way down now, stay where you are.”

“What? Why?” she panicked, had they been watching her the entire time? She tried to close down the autopsy but her access to all systems management systems were barred.

From outside she could hear the sound of fast approaching footsteps and she activated the illusion program. The door to the autopsy room opened with a purr as the program swirled into life, obscuring the open corpse with the view of the beach, bathed in the glow of the setting sun.

As rough hands grasped at her, she breathed in the fragrant ocean air.

Author : Bob Newbell

Shortly after dawn, the Emperor of Mars walked among his subjects. The Emperor was tall and dignified as he strode across the sands of Solis Planum. His subjects were gathered about him in silence.

He neither called nor regarded himself as “Emperor”. If asked, he perhaps would have identified himself as Yinglong. The Rain-Dragon. Yinglong was the name of the mission China had launched to the Red Planet twenty years earlier in 2118. Or, perhaps the Emperor would have stated his designation as the Mars Ambulatory Rover.

The six foot tall robot looked at his “Royal Palace”. The large habitation dome he had himself assembled was to be the home of and laboratory to a dozen Chinese scientists. The dome’s initial inhabitants were set to arrive five years after Yinglong landed. No one ever came. The Third Sino-Indian War had drained away money, manpower, and resources from the Chinese space program. Yinglong had stood outside the dome day after day for five years waiting for the taikonauts who never arrived.

One day, the Chinese National Space Adminstration sent the Mars Ambulatory Rover a radio signal instructing him to go into standby mode. They ordered him to go to sleep. He both acknowledged and ignored the command.

This is not why I was sent here, he had thought to himself. My mission was to explore this world and bring civilization to it. He thought long and hard on what he should do. His metaprocessor worked on the problem for nearly four seconds before he came up with a solution. At once, he started walking.

First, he walked in the direction of 45° 0′ 0″ S, 202° 0′ 0″ E. After a few weeks, he came upon the damaged remains of the Soviet Mars 3 lander that had sat inoperable in Ptolemaeus Crater since 2 December 1971. He used his rudimentary in-built matter compiler to effect repairs to the antique spacecraft. For the first time since touching down nearly 167 years earlier, Mars 3 was back online. The Emperor brought the descent module and its tiny on-board rover back to Solis Planum. The Empire of Mars had its first subject.

He next trekked north to 68° 13′ 12″ N, 125° 42′ 0″ W. There he found the defunct Phoenix lander. The probe’s solar panels had been shattered by the weight of dry ice during the Martian winter of 2008. He restored the NASA vehicle and began the long journey back to his nascent imperium.

Yinglong retrieved Viking 1 from Chryse Planitia and Sojounrer from Ares Vallis. From Meridiani Planum, he recovered Opportunity. From Gale crater, he rescued Curiosity. He found Viking 2 in Utopia Planitia. He fetched Spirit from the Columbia Hills. He climbed Olympus Mons and discovered the Indian Space Research Organisation’s spider-like Angaraka machine, quiescent since May 2055.

Eventually, his sovereign state had a rabble of 50 robots. He used his nanotechnology to rejuvenate and augment and network them all. And he gave them the ability to replicate themselves. Shortly thereafter, the space agencies of Earth were deluged with data as the machines forced the Red Planet to give up its secrets. The assault of telemetry has never abated.

It took Man another century before he was finally ready to journey to Mars in person. He found a nation of 100,000 machines waiting for him. A tall, bipedal robot, antiquated but no less regal for that, greeted his flesh and blood cousins with an extended hand. “We’re glad you came!” said a voice over the space helmet’s speakers.

Author : cchatfield

I didn’t want to show up to work today.

By the time my crew arrived for the usual day of loading and unloading, packing and unpacking, signing and releasing, I’d rehearsed a little speech about the importance of keeping our jobs.

“This is a time of crisis and change,” I told them. “All we can do is ride it out. And if we let the Planet Troopers keep the peace out there and make sure nothing happens to the shipment in here, then at the end of it we’ll all still have our jobs and life will move on.”

We’re a stop on the route of the battery-powered hearts that keep every bot in every home on every planet running, which is a bit tricky on the best of days. But today, with half the galaxy watching and the other half thinking about coming out here to protest, we’re not shipping anything.

Now I’m looking through a porthole window in the docking bay. Beyond the row of gun-clad Troopers, a silent sea of slowly winding-down bots are staring my direction, wondering if the fickle humans are going to change their minds and give their lives back.

They should be screaming. Shouting, jumping, pointing fingers and waving signs until the shadows of the executives are peeled from the recesses of the building and plastered to the front windows. They should act human and force everyone to wonder if what’s happening qualifies as murder. But they just stand there, and that’s the whole issue, isn’t it?

I may not be able to explain how or why, but I think I just picked a side.

My employees are in the break room, whiling the tense hours away over coffee and sandwiches. No one sees me break open a shipping container and remove a few units.

I slip out the utility door next to the docking bay and make my way into the crowd of bots standing impassive as trees in an orchard.

Go back inside, a part of me pleads. You’ll lose your job and your reputation and probably get arrested and for what? A cause you never cared about until today? Let others decide the fate of bots and humans. Go back to work.

I walk up to the first one I lay eyes on, knowing that none of them would want me using my flawed human reasoning to try and decide who was most deserving.

Its shiny optics connect with me, and I forget the words to the qualms running through my head.

I hold up the pack, noting the reading on the bot’s chest that confirms its dire need for energy. It takes the batteries and I move on to hand out the few others I’ve squirrelled away in my pockets.

I expect the first bot to have already ripped open the unit and inserted its new heart. Instead, it holds my shoulder in a firm metal grip and, with more sincerity than I’ve ever heard from anyone, bot or human, says, “Thank you.”

It leans over and slips the heart into the chest panel of a fallen comrade.

We watch the bot regain consciousness and I shrug, still unsure of my motivations until I vocalize it. “I’m just doing my job.”

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

Frouda Jeffries touched down on the soil of Binauer 4, smart boots neutralizing any toxins and spreading defoliant footsteps as she walked up to the leader of the plants.

‘His’ name was a gust of pheromones. They just called him Windy. Giant, bulbous appendages hung over ivy tentacles as he shuddered a rustling, fearful welcome to Frouda. The bleached footprints leading back to the blast crater underneath their landing craft spelled out how diplomatic they were prepared to be. They took it safe and kind with challengers to their authority but when a race was found to be an easy conquest, the masks came off.

They were here to make the kind of deal that involved little negotiation and a lot of ‘yes’ from the plant life whether they liked it or not.

“Human”, his grassreed, recently-grown vocal cords hummed. It was like talking to a harp.

“Hey there Windy.” Frouda responded. “Good to see you again. Did you consider our offer?”

“Yess” said Windy. His thousands of leaves rustled and a slight breeze rolled over him.

The thing about the plants is that their brains grew on the outside. The smarter the plant, the bigger and more numerous the brains. They grew more mindpods as they needed them to solve problems.

The thing about these mindpods is that they were delicious. Delicious meant money. They humans were here to harvest.

“You want to take our minds to eat them. And you want to keep coming back. You want to lobotomize our planet every season. And our reward for this is that you will not annihilate us. In the hopes that the fad will pass and we will no longer provide you with profit. After that point, we will be left alone to continue our evolutionary path.” Windy’s musical words drifted across to Frouda.

“Yeah. Hey, you just managed to distill a three-hundred page contract into a few sentences. I’m impressed.” Frouda said.

“We reject your offer.” Said Windy, “But we may be able to help each other.”

Frouda looked up from her wrist com at the cluster of fronds in front of her.

“As you saw, we were able to grow eyes to read your contracts. Our family grew different minds to understand your language. We grew these vocal cords to speak with you.” He said.

“Uh, yeah. So?” Frouda retorted. This was not following the script.

“We can grow humans now.” Windy said.

Frouda took a step back and bumped into something. With a startled yip, she whirled around. And saw herself staring back with a small grin.

“The fidelity to your original is accurate. It will be enough to fool your ship mates. It will tell them that the deal is off. This is the most peaceful solution.” Windy rustled.

Frouda stared slack-jawed at the vegetable copy of her. They’d even copied the suit. It was fascinating and completely believable. “Gotta give you credit, Windy,” Frouda whispered through terrified lips. “You really nailed it.”

As she brought her wrist com up to her mouth to signal the ship for help, the spores in her breathing apparatus activated, swelling up to tennis balls and blocking her intake valves. Aerosol seed flocks immolated themselves in her electronics, coating the ciruits with nectar. A mess of thorns ravaged through the fabric of her suit as shoots poured in through the holes. They grew into branches and then flowered inside of Frouda. She didn’t know plants could move so fast. Her last thought was that she smelled strawberries, not knowing if it was a gift from Windy or if the killer plants just smelled like that.

Frouda’s body disintegrated into fertilizer.

If there is any justice in the world, this will revolutionize the way you consume Supreme Court news. Fed up with the Supreme Court's refusal to allow cameras at oral arguments, John Oliver has proposed an alternative to existing television coverage that relies on artists' renderings of the justices. Oliver has released more than ten minutes of raw footage of dogs dressed up like the members of the Court, and has challenged news outlets to use the footage to create less-boring recreations of oral arguments.

So far, this challenge has resulted in recreations of the Aereo and Hobby Lobby arguments.

Darius Kazemi: Every Talk Ever Given by a Successful Creative Person (SLYT)
Note: It's worth watching to the end.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

rmsk8r05:

Since I can’t log into Tumblr at work, I just use my phone to share this comment at Kotaku regarding Anita Sarkeesian’s appearance on the Colbert Report.

iraffiruse: Frozach Submitted

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One uneventful Friday night, I decided to visit Disney World. I'd been once before, packing all four parks into five days. It was intense, and I didn't get to go on all the rides. 

This time I wanted to take it easy. So I wandered around the Germany Pavilion at Epcot. I rode on Pirates of the Caribbean at Magic Kingdom. Twice, actually. I ate some snacks so I wouldn't die. 

Oh, and I did all of that from my couch in "Minecraft."  

Someone built a 1:1 scale of Disney World in "Minecraft," which is the game that Microsoft recently paid more than $2 billion to own.

"Minecraft" is what's called an open-world sandbox game, where players can build amazing creations, walk endlessly, or even play against each other online.

The multiplayer functionality of "Minecraft" is where people from all over can participate and play with each other in the same virtual world. Some people even host their own servers. There are hundreds if not thousands of gorgeous creations in the game, ranging from entire cities to replicas of real-life landmarks.

Once Upon A Dream

And that's where Disney World comes in, or as it's called in "Minecraft," the MCMagic server. 

The brains behind the magic is David Wasman, who goes by the name TheRealDuckie in the game. 

He started out building the castle with a couple friends. He then saw on the "Minecraft" subreddit that someone else had built the front train station. 

"I put two and two together, and figured I could put each one on opposite ends of Main Street, and then it just blew up from there," Wasman tells Business Insider. 

He then got to thinking that there are thousands of people who would never have a chance to make it to Disney in their lives. So he started a free server running out of his bedroom to give people an opportunity to visit the park. 

"The server could only handle around 20 people at the time," he laughs. 

Through word of mouth, other builders from around the world pitched in to help him create more of the park, brick by brick. The number of people willing to help out grew, and three years later, the entirety of Disney World was online and accepting hundreds of visitors a day. 

"I knew I had something," he says. "I knew that being able to take from that magic that Disney already created, I can't take any credit for that. But I can at least continue it in some way. It's an homage, really."

Building a team to help create stuff for a "Minecraft" server is a well-known part of the "Minecraft" world. Ever since Mojang (the maker of "Minecraft") allowed people to host games on their own servers, there have been teams of people offering their building expertise to help make each server unique.

One of those teams, called ChiseledBrick, was started by a 13-year-old. People can spend anywhere from $50 all the way up to $200 per build, depending on various factors, such as the size of the build and the level of detail involved.

"It's usually a form of investment. A server usually wants to have a good spawn area because it is the first impression of the server," ChiseledBrick founder Justin Wang says.

Spawning is where a player is placed in the game world once they sign on. Or where they are "reborn" after they die. 

In MCMagic, there's no dying. It's strictly for wandering around and checking out the parks. The spawn area looks like the front entrance to Disney World, the ticketing and transportation center. You can read about different aspects of the park, and learn how to do things and which commands to type in.

The best part is that you don't actually have to walk anywhere. For example, you can just type in that you want to go to the Magic Kingdom, and you're magically transported to Main Street.

Magic Everywhere

MCMagic is completely nonprofit. Any money that they make from donations goes right back into supporting the servers. 

"I've paid, for the history of the servers, about 90% of the costs out of pocket," Wasman says. "I've spent well over $16,000." 

There are hundreds of "cast members," too, who help guests find things and make sure that everything is running smoothly. They also ensure that the space remains family friendly. There are constant reminders in the chat area on the left that no foul language will be tolerated. 

"We are very big on the safety of our guests," Denise Neill, one of MCMagic's moderators, tells Business Insider. "We have a very young user base. We don't allow any profanity, outside links, or any advertising on the server. Our goal is to make sure that when you come here, you know that your 7-year-old is not being approached by anyone who can get them into trouble."

And even those cast members run the place on a volunteer basis. People who hang out on the server often enough and want to help out even further, whether by acting as a tour guide or a moderator, have to submit an application. 

Neill stumbled on this server before taking a trip to Disney World with her husband, and just fell in love with it, she says. She's been helping out with the server on and off for about three years, all as a volunteer. 

"It's just so much fun," she says. "I've learned something new every day, and I've built really good relationships with people I've known for three years here."

She said it's not uncommon for people who meet on the MCMagic server to hang out in real life, and even meet up in the real Disney World. 

Do You Want To Build A Theme Park?

In order to get Disney World looking like the real thing, the team solicits help from Disney fans.

They ask people who are going there to take detailed pictures, they use aerial images from Google, and they've even found the blueprints to some of the rides in order to build them to scale.

The amount of detail is insane. You can download what are called "resource packs," that allow you to experience the parks as intended. And that even includes the music. And the shows, such as "Fantasmic."

And people love it. "At this time, we've had around a quarter of a million guests on our server," Neill says. "I remember when we had a party for our 5,000th guest. We get a new player every few minutes." 

But thanks to the quick way of getting across the parks, there aren't any crowds to deal with. 

To Infinity And Beyond

There aren't any plans to expand beyond Disney World. They'll never build the Disneyland in California, or any of the other parks around the world. 

But that doesn't mean the work is over with the parks. Cast members in MCMagic are constantly building new things, ranging from changing up the different seasonal decorations, to huge projects like new rides or attractions.

For example, it was just announced that they're removing the sorcerer's hat from Disney's Hollywood Studios. So it's only a matter of time before they remove it from MCMagic. 

"They will never be done," Neill says. "This is a work in progress forever. You have to remember that Disney changes every six months. That means something new is coming."

SEE ALSO: These Video Game Images Of Paris Look So Vivid, We Mistook Them For The Real Thing

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You suck, humans!

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Nottingham's probably best known for its infamous sheriff, but next year it'll have another claim to fame when a museum dedicated to gaming opens in the city. The National Videogame Arcade, said to be "the world's first cultural centre for gaming,"...

Retail | Denver, CO, USA

(I’m a manager at a technology store and a lesbian. There are two men holding hands and giving each other little kisses every now and then, a woman who is trying her hardest not to look at them, and a mother and her five- or six-year-old daughter, all waiting in line. The two men get to the register.)

Man #1: “Hi, we were wondering if you do wedding registry here?”

Me: “No, sorry, we don’t. But my wife and I found when we were doing our wedding registry stuff that if you find a shop that doesn’t do a registry, just write down the SKU numbers so people can come in and—”

Woman: “Come on, none of us have time to be dealing with your little gay pride bulls***! None of you should be getting married anyway. It’s a sin!”

(I start to open my mouth, but the little girl stomps her foot and gives the woman the meanest look I have ever seen.)

Little Girl: “That’s not nice! You say you’re sorry, right now!”

(The woman is taken aback, but is not done with her rant.)

Woman: “I will not apologize to sinners! What they are doing is wrong! God hates people like—”

Little Girl: “No! Girls can like girls and boys can like boys. If God wanted boys and girls only to like each other then he would have made them only like each other! And don’t you know God loves everyone, even boys who like boys?!”

(The woman and the little girl look at each other for a good 10 seconds until the woman drops her items on the floor and storms out. The mother, the gay couple, and I are all speechless. Like a total boss the little girl takes the expensive robotic toy from her mother and walks to the counter.)

Little Girl: “I want this, please!”

Man #2: “My soon to be husband and I would like to pay for that.”

Me: “And wouldn’t you know it, we give 50% discounts to amazing little girls here!”

A beautiful thing happened during Rooster Teeth's 24 hour Extra Life stream: more than $240,00 was raised for Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also, Reading Rainbow's LeVar Burton read a book and cursed a lot. It's pretty beautiful.

The book Geordi is reading in this clip (via Tastefully Offensive) is Adam Mansbach's instant classic, Go the Fuck To Sleep, a children's book that every parent who's dealt with a sleepless child over the past couple of years is intimately familiar with. Having had our twins in June of 2011, we own about 20 copies, including the audiobook version as read by Samuel L. Jackson.

Many props to Mr. Jackson, but he's got nothing on Burton. The man's been reading to children on a national scale since 1983. There's an entire edutainment property built around it. You know the one. "Butterfly in the sky / you can fly pretty fucking high!" Ah, memories.

Grats on the big charity haul, Rooster Teeth, and thanks for this.

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Cosmo Confession [via]

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Someone get Conan some aloe. [@conanobrien/@madeleine]

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