This is a big issue with nanoparticles too. Gemini could make a lot of convincing images really fast. The only flaw? The images look TOO GOOD because the training data is all papers with cherry picked images.

I'm in the UK, but if I could get a lift in Thunderbird 1 I could be there is like, 20 minutes.

*strong directional sunlight

0.01 seconds before @tpneenan.bsky.social mentions Missy from Doctor Who

I kinda love that @frogcroakley.bsky.social's bluesky profile gives me absolutely zero context for who they are. I have no idea what to expect as a listener! Exciting! 🍿

Shout out to the sky portal from the 1995 TV movie adaption of Stephen King's "The Langoliers". One of those "so bad it's kinda good" movies.

I'm a big Banks fan but remember almost none of the Algebraist from my first read through (apart from the gas giant world of The Dwellers). Time for a re-read!

The same compendium also has this story I rememeber well, where women around the world start giving birth to geometeically shaped babies. Basically body horror meets 'Flatland'.

Full story here:

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-...

It's in this compendium. 'The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015`. Now available online here:

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/help...

I recall reading a really interesting short story around a decade ago.

“Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead,” by Carmen Maria Macha

It takes the form of a kick-starter page, where the main character is trying to crowd fund a journey to the middle East to go through a portal to Hell!

Honorary shout out to the depiction of the Spacing Guild Heighliner in the new Dune movies. The way they depict these colossal ships as somehow bridging two parts of the universe was really beautiful. Are they a ship? Are they a portal? Who cares!

I find the 'Puddle Jumper' ships in Stargate to be endearingly naff. Like green Glasgow subway trains, but in space!

BTW if anyone can point me to queer analysis of 'The Forever War', because I feel like it's both weirdly simultaneously progressive for its time (1974), yet regressive in other ways... there's A LOT to unpack.

In 'The Forever War' by Joe Haldeman, there are instantaneous interstellar jump points/portals called 'collapsars'. The catch is you have to get there via conventional space travel, meaning time-dilation kicks in HARD, thus the main plot device of the book.

Also, 3000? Woah! How long did that take to compile?