Slow News Month

But don't let the slowness of the news cycle stop you from getting excited...the new Ansible is here!

The Dead Past. 60 Years Ago, there was multimedia fun at the UK national convention ('Festivention'): 'The last item of the day was a showing of the "Lost World", a film based on A. Conan Doyle's famous fantasy of a South American land in which dinosaurs and pterodactyls still exist. Made in 1925 and starring Wallace Beery and Bessie Love, the film was naturally silent, but by clever manipulation of gramophone records ("Night on Bare Mountain", "Rite of Spring", etc), and of the volume control, [William F.] Temple and Arthur C. Clarke managed a very appropriate accompaniment.' (Science Fantasy News 8, July 1951). Less well received was the festival year's South Kensington Exhibition of Science: 'Frankly, from the coal mine blackness of the first section (designed to show the atomic structure of a lead pencil) to the final case showing the Universe (which during our visit was not working and invisible), the whole affair is very disappointing. [...] There are some extremely interesting Waltzing Mice (no information), a cinema show we didn't have the courage to see, and, best of all, an exit into the time-tested Science Museum proper.' (Ibid, July 1951)