One of the things I love about sci-fi is the way it can throw you a curveball - because you don't know the "rules" of the universe in the same way you do those of our current reality, you can be caught off-guard by an unexpected "That is so cool - I had no idea they could do that!" moment, even (and perhaps especially) if in hindsight you can see the hints. My favourite instance of this is the resolution of one of the cliffhangers between The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God (those of you who've read those books will know what I mean, and those of you who haven't, and have any interest in space opera, should go out and read The Reality Dysfunction at once), but this week's BSG had a nifty little one too.
Going off in a completely different direction: many of you may recall the Sony advert with all the balls bouncing down a street. I remeber seeing it in the cinema and thinking "that's rather nifty. Obviously done with computer graphics, but still nifty." Fast forward to yesterday, when I came across an article about the follow-up advert (a rather sillier affair featuring exploding paint, but again extremely nifty) explaining how it was all done for real. And how contrary to what many people that, last year's ad was indeed done by sending a quarter of a million bouncy balls down a San Francisco street. Alas, none of this will make me buy a Sony TV if they cost rather more than a comparable competitor...
