Saturday morning linkdump.

* Fiona sent along this image as the last word on my "Is Infinite Jest science fiction?" post.

* Good news, everyone! Fox and the Futurama voice cast have reached a deal.

* This is the way the MMORPG ends: The Matrix Online has incorporated its upcoming coming shutdown into the story itself. Via Kottke.

* American Castles.

* You're (probably) a federal criminal.

* Man is his sushi: Abhay Khosla's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Sunday night links.

* I can't bring myself to watch the murder of Neda Soltani on YouTube, but a lot of other people have. It's remarkable how quickly her face has become that of the protests in Iran.

* The New York Times has an article exposing abusive practices in the freelance textbook market in New York, with my good friend and old co-blogger PClem providing some of the ugly details.

* Polls show widespread public support for a public health care option. Will this remind Democrats in Congress that they swept the last two elections?

* Buffy vs Twilight.

* Infinite Summer begins tonight. Kottke kicks things off.

The human ecology of vampires.

In case you're wondering, Buffy's Sunnyvale reaches a stable equilibrium with a population of about 36,000 humans and 18 vampires.

And so Buffy emerges as the deeply anti-ecological force she is, disrupting nature's balance with her pointless persecution of an endangered species...



Via Pharyngula.

America is a country that no longer reads: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series currently occupies all four of the top four spots on the New York Times a bestseller list. In other news, America is a deeply unserious place. [UPDATE: See the comments for some correction on this. The Freakonomics posted is actually fairly lightly sourced and he never actually says which bestseller list he saw.]

Will Morbius, the Living Vampire, be the Big Bad in Spider-Man 4? I remember seeing this character in the animated series when I was a kid—he certainly seemed ridiculous then, though some of that may have to do with silly network interference. (Aside: Who knew Morbius was a part of Blade's backstory?)

If I were Sam Raimi—and I am—I'd go the whole other way with it. All humans: Spider-Man vs. the cops, Spider-Man vs. terrorists, Spider-Man vs. Kingpin, Spider-Man vs. Black Cat, Spider-Man vs. Punisher, Spider-Man vs. Kraven the Hunter. (Spider-Man vs. the Vulture! Spider-Man vs. the Terrible Tinkerer! And so on.) Part of what was deeply wrong with Spider-Man 3, I think, was that the bizarre physical properties of Sandman hadn't been earned—it turned the franchise into (yes) a cartoon. An all-human ensemble would immediately restore suspension-of-disbelief and thereby restore credibility. Cut the next few song-and-dance numbers and you're halfway there.

I'll give Raimi the Lizard because he's kind of been grandfathered in, but leave Hydro-Man and the Rhino at home this time around...

Salon has a review of Alan Bell's upcoming Six Feet Under follow-up, the vampire-themed True Blood.

We watched The Man from Earth on Netflix DVD tonight after first hearing about it a few weeks ago, when the producer of the film thanked the P2P networks for the free publicity. The plot, more or less, is this: a man who has been alive since the late Paleolithic decides to reveal the truth about his long life to his colleagues on the night before he is set to once again retire and disappear. (It reminded me a little bit of Suzy McKee Charnas's The Vampire Tapestry, still the best vampire novel that no one else has ever heard of—but it goes in a much different direction.)

Although nominally a science-fiction film, this is much more like a one-act play—aside from a handful of exterior shots, there is only one set, and all of the action is dialogue. There are no special effects and hardly any soundtrack. But despite or because of its simplicity I found it quite enjoyable, probably the best sci-fi film I've seen since the (also independent) Primer. Check it out (through legal channels if you can). It's worth seeing. It won't kill you.

Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies. Sadly, their vampire analysis is just plain wrong; everyone knows that not every person killed by a vampire becomes a vampire, and indeed, vampires often leave their victims alive to be fed from again. Via MeFi.

Man wakes up during autopsy. Via Boing Boing.