North Carolina has some kick-ass aquariums. Split into three separate locations down the Carolina coast, they each have fabulous displays of the NC wildlife that can be found at each stage – mountains, plains, coastal plains, tidal pools, and ocean.

Up to this point we’ve only ever gone to Ft. Fischer as it was the closest, but this year we took the extra 1/2 hour drive up to Pine Knolls on the Emerald Isle of the Outer Banks. It was well worth it. They have a giant tank recreating the sunken U-boat 352 complete with most of the sea life you’d find around it. Big fish, eels, sea turtles and sharks.

If you are ever in North Carolina it’s worth visiting their aquariums – and the admission prices are easy on the pocket book too.

I’d almost forgotten – a while back it was announced that Fright Night, the seminal ’80′s horror flick was being remade and the star is none other than former Doctor Who, David Tennant.

io9 has the latest scoop, check it out! I’m rarely big on remakes, but David Tennant can bring a whole lot to a role!

The original movie poster was rad!

The BBC has an intriguing article on a little known project that Darwin and his colleagues had worked on – Ascension island.

In short, this volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic was a barren rock.

What happened in the interim is the amazing story of how the architect of evolution, Kew Gardens and the Royal Navy conspired to build a fully functioning, but totally artificial ecosystem.

By a bizarre twist, this great imperial experiment may hold the key to the future colonisation of Mars.

Go read the rest here!

September 7th is right around the corner. For the past two seasons SOA has been some of the best television around. It’s pure motorcycle/violence porn. Perfect!

Of course the political news is all ablaze with the ramblings of Glen Beck’s rally in Washington. I was keen to hear the attendance numbers and ensuing vitriol that would be spat from all sides on said numbers. In a mud put like this how does one separate fact from fiction?

Ah science – even the sketchy, fuzzy science of crowd counting delivers better numbers than the biased squint and pull a number out of your ass routine that we’ve seen come from all sides of the media.

Steve Doig does this kind of science. You can read about his latest efforts on Glen Beck’s rally:

My estimate is that about 80,000 people were at the rally. Ryan Shuler, an Airphotoslive image analyst, used the same images and a different grid-density method to produce an estimate of 87,000. Considering the error margins around our separately-calculated estimates, they are statistically identical.

Of course he’s taken all kinds of heat for publishing this from the same right-wing groups that lauded his numbers on the Obama inauguration.

Do numbers really mean anything? Not always. In fact, often it becomes a crutch, a logical fallacy - argumentum ad populum, that because a lot/too little people were there an idea is good/bad. How many news stories will fill the airwaves balanced on this exact crutch rather than addressing the issues that were presented? Too many.

I fully expect one of the few, if only  place that will actually dissect the messages presented at the rally will be the Daily Show. Then again, throughout all of man’s history comedy and satire has always delivered the truth.

This looks so damn good.

I hope it’s available over the ‘net somehow.

A great interview

Definitely NSFW.

Bioshock was a great game. Beautiful setting, neat story, interesting game play. Just what you want. Creater Ken Levine is back with what looks to be an amazing follow-up.