Isaac Asimov hasn’t had the best luck with Hollywood. Perhaps the most obvious example is the Will Smith vehicle I, Robot, which 20th Century Fox felt was a better use of the property than the infinitely superior screenplay that Harlan Ellison wrote back in in the 1970s. And we’re not even going to go into the movie adaptation of Bicentennial Man, in which Robin Williams’ mugging almost broke through his robot costume.

And now it looks like we can look forward to Hollywood destroying yet another Asimov classic: his magnum opus The Foundation Trilogy. Sony has hired Dante Harper to write the script for a trilogy of films to be directed by Roland Emmerich.

If you haven’t read the books (and you better before they hit movie screens), it follows the efforts of mathematician Hari Seldon, who invents the new science of Psychohistory, which allows for the prediction of large-scale events in society. After he predicts that galactic empire is due to collapse into a dark age, he creates the Foundations: two organizations dedicated to preserving knowledge and shortening the dark age as much as possible.

If you haven’t heard of Dante Harper… it’s just because he hasn’t written anything that’s come out yet. His first sold screenplay was the Timothy McVeigh biopic Dreamland, which is still in production and he’s written scripts for David Fincher’s Black Hole remake and the upcoming Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

This is actually the second Asimov film that Fox has greenlit in the last couple weeks. They recently announced a version of the robot-detective novel, The Caves of Steel, to be directed by Henry Hobson and written by screenwriter John Scott.  We’ll just have to wait and see which one mangles it source material more.

[Deadline]

There’s been a lot of speculation about what NASA will be using to follow up on the recently departed Space Shuttle (apart from paying Russia to let our astronauts bum rides into space at the cost of $63 million apiece). Well, NASA’s officially revealed their plans and they’re pretty straightforward: They’re going to make a huge goddamn rocket.

The SLS (Space Launch System) will be a heavy lift rocket designed to go to Earth orbit and beyond, setting the stage for future space exploration to the Moon, local asteroids and Mars. It’ll be topped by the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, a space capsule similar in general shape to the old Apollo capsules.

The SLS (which will be flanked by solid-fuel boosters like the shuttle was) will deliver 10 to 20 percent more thrust than the old and gigantic Saturn V rockets and will be around 40 feet taller, too. Initially, it’s planned to be able to carry 77 metric tons of cargo, but will eventually carry 130 metric tons (286,000 pounds) of payload. That’s almost five times as much payload as the shuttle could carry (59,000 pounds) and hopefully without all that pesky blowing up.

While all of this is starting to make NASA sound almost relevant again, we’re not going to be see this giant phallic monstrosity anytime soon. In fact, the SLS doesn’t have it’s first test flight scheduled until way the heck out in 2017 (The Orion capsule will start unmanned testing a bit earlier: 2013).

Looks like our astronauts will just have to keep hitchhiking for a while longer.

[NASA via Space]

When Universal announced back in June that they were trying to get sci-fi explosions director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow) to direct a movie based on classic arcade game Asteroids, it begged the question: could a bad director a ruin a movie that was a bad idea to begin with? Well, we may never know the answer as Emmerich has announced that he ain’t directing it after all.

Emmerich recently sat down with Collider to talk about his upcoming film Singularity, which he for some reason decided to do instead of a film based around floating jagged circles. When asked about Asteroids, he said:

I was very honored that they wanted to have me as a director, and I kind of liked the script very much, but at that time I was writing with my writing partner Harold Kloser a new script called Singularity and I opted for that.

I think the most telling phrase in that quote is “I kind of liked the script very much” which sounds like Hollywood-speak for “we were going to have 25 new screenwriters rewrite the hell out of it.”

There’s no word yet on who Universal will ask next, but… does it really matter?

[Collider via BLASTR]

If there’s one thing we’ve learned at Gamma Squad, it’s that there’s no secret that nerds can’t figure out. If you’ve got something nerds want to know, they’ll make anything from Wikileaks to the Large Hadron Collider to Wikileaks just to get it. Which is why it’s amazing that it’s taken them 24 years to figure out how to replicate the ultimate nerd drink, Hi-C’s Ghostbusters-themed Ecto Cooler.

If you don’t remember the sweetened corn syrup concoction that was Ecto Cooler, it first hit shelves in 1987 as a tie-in to the Ghostbusters animated spin-off The Real Ghostbusters. But while the animated series only lasted six seasons, the drink outlasted it and Hi-C kept it on shelves until 2001, a mind-blowing 14 years. Even then, they kept the formula but changed the name to Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen and later to Crazy Citrus Cooler, which finally got discontinued in 2007.

And that’s where the story ended…until Ghostbuster enthusiasts (and nerds) Ghostbusters: Chicago Division came up with their own home-grown recipe for the drink. Now you can make your own pitcher of Ecto Cooler, as long as you have the following:

• 1 Packet Flavor Aid Orange
• 1 Packet Flavor Aid Tangerine
• 3/4 Cup Orange Juice (No Pulp)
• 3/4 Cup Tangerine Juice
• 1/3 scoop Countrytime Lemonade
• 1 3/4 Cups Sugar
• Green and blue food coloring.

We gotta admit that sounds tasty…although the act of mixing all that together seems so much more of a hassle than just grabbing a 90′s-style juice box.

Catch the how-to recipe (along with several minutes of testimonials) after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Giving cops the ability to predict future crimes sure sounds like a great idea (as long as Tom Cruise isn’t involved), but how do you do it? Well, the Santa Cruz Police Department is betting that you do it the same way you predict Earthquake aftershocks… by constructing mathematical models based on data of past incidents.

And the crazy thing? It seems like it’s working.

The computer program uses data from the last 8 years of previous burglaries to create a list of 10 “hot spots” of likely burglary sites. Police then adjust their daily patrols to hit those hot spots and feed new burglary information to the program each day.

Now, they’re not looking to catch criminals in the act (the program can’t predict individual crimes, of course), but they are hoping to prevent crimes with a more effective police presence. The program was developed by a team of Santa Clara University researchers, including an anthropologist, a criminologist and two mathematicians.

How is it doing? Well burglaries in July were down 27 percent from July 2010, but of course the program will have to run longer before it’s accuracy can really be judged. According to the LA Times, the LAPD are also interested in using the program later this year and are hoping to expand the parameters from burglaries to include violent crimes like gang shootings.

Here’s hoping they don’t have a problem with that pesky “free will.”

[New York Times via Singularity Hub]

Ever since Enterprise got yanked off the air, everyone in the universe has tried to pitch a new Star Trek TV series. William Shatner, Bryan Singer, J. Michael Straczynski, Jonathan Frakes…all of them have tried to bring Trek back to the airwaves, so you’ll have to forgive us if we’re not too impressed when some new guy who we’ve never heard of is trying to do it too.

Who’s the new guy? He’s David G. Foster. If he doesn’t sound familiar (and there’s no reason he should), here’s how he describes himself on the website of his production company 1947 Entertainment:

I worked extensively in the art & entertainment industries, supporting science fiction television and film such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Xena Warrior Princess, Hercules, and many more. I worked with directors, writers, actors, and production crew in various venues. The Sci-Fi Industry also provided many opportunities for extensive travel and interaction with dedicated and obsessive fans from all sectors of life. This work and my passion for science fiction & art drove me to design cutting-edge imagery born from an active imagination.

During this time, I was able to study some aspects of production from the art department to directing while on the sets of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager with cast and crew that included Rene Auberjonois, Armin Shimerman, and Michael Piller.

I served as script-consultant and advisor for Richard Hatch in the production of Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming. This is where I was also given an opportunity to act, but didn’t really catch the ‘acting bug.’ I suppose that to me, acting was delivering someone else’s vision, while my own vision could be written and produced.

According to IMDB, he did serve as script consultant (and uncredited actor) on Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming. Now, you should know that this isn’t the Sci Fi Channel series we’re talking about, but a trailer for a proposed reboot of the property made by original Galactica actor Richard Hatch before the Sci Fi series started. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of him being involved with any of the other properties he mentions in his bio. As for 1947 Entertainment, it looks like it’s just made a sci-fi short called Clockwork Infinity.

Now if that doesn’t make you suspicious that this pitch isn’t going to be greenlit anytime soon, how about this detail:

The production is currently seeking an executive producer to help pitch the project to CBS.

They don’t even have a pitch lined up. Yeah, this isn’t going anywhere. After all, if Kirk and Riker couldn’t get it done with their connections, what are the odds that Foster can do it?

Oh, and if you’re still interested, the pitch would take place in the original Star Trek timeline sometime after Voyager. Not that it really matters.

[/Flim]