Sure, Star Trek has tons of futuristic, sci-fi technology that we would love to have. I think the two greatests of Roddenberry’s inventions were the Holodeck and the Transporter. A company in Dallas seems to have made the first step towards those products.

According to this article in the NY Times, Teleportec of Dallas “has introduced technology to transmit holographic images of people over high-speed digital circuits.” I guess this is sort of a combination of the Holodeck and the Transporter but it bodes well for a real-life realization of those fictional technologies.

Being the sick bastard I am, my mind immediately went to what this could do for the porn industry. Imagine a 3D orgy in your living room beamed through your cable modem. The possibilities are endless. The reality of that may not be so absurd. The porn industry has long been an early adopter of new technology. There were the first to exploit VHS, and then the Web, and now they are doing more with the DVD format than any mainstream movie to date.

Another great application of this technology could be in the realm of medicine with doctors all over the world watching a 3D holographic image of a surgery being done and offering there suggestions. In addition, the military will probably be greatly interested in this technology. The possible applications are staggering, but for my dollar, porn has to be the first industry to try this thing out.

With their first episode now released on DVD and their 13th season beginning this week, it looks like the Simpsons are the greatest animated prime-time TV show ever. As far as my opinion, I’d say that even if they had only done 8 seasons or even 5.

As have so many other things, one might expect the Simpsons to change in light of America’s war on terrorism and the attacks that precipitated it. The New York Times’ A. O. Scott explores this possibility in this article (free registration required) by venturing out to LA to check in at the Simpsons studios and get the lay of the land.

This article does a nice job of giving us an inside look at the show I love, as well as exploring some of the issues facing a creative team that it is often sarcastic and always subversive. At the same time, Scott manages to point out the humanity that is inherent in the Simpsons family. I highly recommend giving this a read.

For some inexplicable reason (I like to point to synchronicity) Bigfoot has popping up in my life quite a bit lately. Sure, that says a lot about my life, but sometimes it results in finding great things such as Cooking with Bigfoot. This little friendly talkshow roasts many popular celebrities with a wit and sarcasm that is all too rare these days.

I especially enjoyed the episode with Andy Richter. Anytime “man on man ass love” can be used to comic ends, I’m there. Don’t get me wrong, this is high-quality animation and production with a seemingly experienced and talented cast. This is a great cartoon with some biting commentary on our modern lives.